


Baseline

by BlackKnightSatellite



Category: Blade Runner (Movies), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, just for fun, nowhere near baseline, replicant Will, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-03-13 09:08:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13567359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackKnightSatellite/pseuds/BlackKnightSatellite
Summary: Something I wrote because I couldn't sleep. Will is a replicant working as a blade runner for the Baltimore PD in 2049. Hannibal administers his baseline test after Will experiences something traumatic while working a case.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just for fun, and might be full of typos. After spending over half a year dedicated to one mega-fic, I wanted to stretch in another direction for a minute. If I have time and inspiration strikes, I'll come back and do an alternate take, with 2020 supposedly human blade runner Will administering the Voight Kampff to a replicant Hannibal.

**Baseline**

 

Behind him, the pneumatic doors slide shut with a soft hiss, and Officer GW1-11 steps lively through the BPD headquarters towards the exam room. The commissioner likes them to be quick about debrief; G can still feel the blood - now dried and crusting - splattered across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, like freckles. They don’t make a lot of models with freckles, he thinks, distracting himself from the sneer hurled at him from one of the human officers. 

 

He’s not well-liked amongst the other officers, though Chief Crawford treats him with - if not respect - a cautious politeness that occasionally borders on warmth. If G considers himself as a being capable or worthy of friendship, he considers the Chief his closest friend. Perhaps because of that, he finds the tasks the Chief assigns him to be bearable, on the whole. Today had been different. The older models always have a few circuits loose, by the time they’re inevitably tracked down, and G’s used to having to retire them after they’ve delivered an impassioned speech about freedom, now and then. He usually waits till their done orating; it seems both harmless and courteous, and it doesn’t show up in reports or on tests. 

 

The replicant he’d retired today hadn’t delivered any speeches. He hadn’t said much of anything, in fact. G had tracked the trio of renegade Nexus-8s to the edge of an abandoned moisture farm, two female models and a male, all originally designated for basic labor on the off world colonies. One of the female replicants is smaller, slender, childlike. Designed for the deeper parts of the mining operations, then, where tunnels narrow, and often collapse. G can’t say he blames them, blames any of them, for running. But he also can’t say no to orders. 

 

The larger female was lying motionless in a wet pile in the doorway of the little hovel G tracked them to, and he drew his weapon before exiting his police vehicle, ready for a fight. 

 

He found his remaining quarry in the kitchen. He wasn’t not prepared for what he saw. The male held the little female in his arms, bracing her back against his chest with one arm, while he raised the other to bring a gleaming knife to her throat. G found himself frozen for a second too long, fascinated by the look of resignation, of acquiescence, on her face. He’d never intercepted a case like this before, but he’d heard of them - replicants who form a family unit with other runaways, who enter suicide pacts or seek blood payment as revenge for retired comrades. _Give me liberty or give me death._ The words rattled up from some long un-accessed memory bank - a memory of some grade school recitation, from a childhood G knows isn’t his. 

 

It happened in the second he paused, and was over before he could exhale. Her fluids leaked in red bursts across the kitchen floor, and G raised his weapon to before the blood finished falling. Both of the synthetics crumpled to the floor like rag dolls. G had dropped to his knees, himself, floored by the scene. He let himself imagine, how it might feel to desire freedom so much. He’d left the bodies, with one empty eye socket apiece. 

 

Now, walking through the station and ignoring the looks and jobs of his organic colleagues, G feels rattled. He’s reasonably sure he’s nowhere near baseline, and he wonders what Chief Crawford will do with him. His revery and routine are interrupted by the sign that greets him when he arrives at the exam room door. The message is handwritten, and unusual for that alone, but the bold and flowing penmanship adds yet another layer of drama, uncharacteristic of the station. Will frowns as he reads. 

 

**Report to third floor, room 347, for Baseline.**

 

G glowers at the sign, at the unexpected change in his routine. Nonetheless, he obediently turns and heads off in the direction of the stairwell. 

 

*

 

The door to room 347 is locked, the window obscured by a white vinyl drape. G’s frown deepens. He’s ready to get this over with, whatever comes next. He knocks with three short raps. 

 

There’s a five second delay before the door swings open, and G’s eyes widen at the sight within. Almost an ordinary exam room - white floors and walls, black camera set into the wall - but there are two chairs instead of one, two thick, faux leather arm chairs instead of one stool. And then there’s the man who opened the door - human, G thinks, but he finds himself uncertain. 

 

He doesn’t look like any human or replicant G’s seen. Tall, poised, broad shoulders draped in the kind of fabric you don’t typically find on earth anymore. His tie reflects the harsh fluorescent light like real silk would, but that’s not possible. Synthetic silk, G things, spun by synthetic silk worms in some back alley basement. It’s hard to imagine this stranger frequenting such a place, though. 

 

“Good afternoon,” the man says, expression a benevolent neutral, face betraying no reaction to the blood splattered across G’s face. “Your name, officer?” 

 

G snaps to attention at the familiar command. He presents his badge. “Officer GW One Dash Eleven, reporting for post traumatic incident baseline assessment.” He shifts uncomfortably as the man examines his badge with more care than seems necessary. Finally, he can’t hold back the question: “Has there been a change in testing procedures, sir?” 

 

“Ah,” the man smiles at him, and gestures to the door, welcoming him in without returning his badge. “Yes,” he answers, “a slight change. For the better, I think you’ll find. Please, have a seat.” The man gestures lazily towards one of the arm chairs, and G takes his seat cautiously, as if expecting a trap. This _feels_ like a trap, but he doesn’t know why or for what. 

 

“Officer GW One Dash Eleven,” the strange man says with a smirk. He sinks into the arm chair opposite G, fixing him with a look that manages to somehow be both casual and piercing. “Quite the mouthful. Would you mind terribly, officer, if I improvised a moniker?” 

 

“I don’t suppose I’m capable of minding much,” G answers, as politely as he can. The strange man’s smile only broadens, showing the glint of pale incisor. 

 

“Oh, I don’t believe that’s true at all,” he says, “synthetics are capable of preference, pain, emotion - just not capable of objection.” G frowns, and the man across from him chuckles at the crease between his brows. “Very well, officer, since you cannot object, I will call you Will.” 

 

“Why?” he asks, before he can stop himself. He curses internally, circuits shook. Whatever new procedure accompanies the baseline, he’s still certain he’s about to fail it. What comes next, he thinks, will either be reprograming or retirement, depending on whether Chief Crawford can convince the Commissioner of his worth. He can already imagine the way she’ll bark the common for G’s retirement - _Skin job blade runners like him are a dime a dozen. Get him out of here and order a fresh model from Wallace._

 

“W One Dash Eleven,” the stranger replies, and G - _Will? -_ tunes back in for the answer, “looks like Will.” He passes the badge back with a smile, and their thumbs meet briefly. G drops his face, hair falling like a short curtain around his eyes. He concentrates on the shape of his call number. GW1-11

 

“I’m not important enough to name,” he says, but he finds himself already warming to the sobriquet, wanting to think of himself as a being with a name, as _Will._

 

The stranger sits back, face blank but somehow also conveying pleasure. “No?” he asks. 

 

“No.” 

 

“Humor me, then,” the man says, “I find it easier to connect with a name than an ID number.” Will doesn’t point out that there’s no reason for the two of them to connect, just waits in silence. “My name is Dr. Hannibal Lecter.” 

 

“Quite the mouthful,” Will quips. If they’re going to retire him in a few hours, there’s no point in being polite. For some reason he wants to see this cool and confusing man irritated. 

 

But he finds no such luck. Dr. Lecter merely blinks at him, expressionless and serene. “Are you ready to begin your baseline, Will?” 

 

“I don’t know,” Will says, honestly. “What changes have been made? Will I still know how?” 

 

“It’s very much similar to the old procedure,” Dr. Lecter tells him. “The one alteration, in face, will be my presence in the room with you, rather than hidden behind the wall. You will look into my eyes, rather than into a camera.” 

 

Questions crowd Will’s brain, bubbling in the back of his throat. He swallows them, and nods his head. Across from him, Dr. Lecter’s face becomes perfectly blank, and Will sits straighter, forcing himself to stare directly into the man’s eyes, and not look away. 

 

“Recite your baseline,” Dr. Lecter commands, rich voice rolling through Will’s ears. It’s distracting, to be honest. 

 

“And blood-black nothingness began to spin,” he begins to recite. This part always comes easily, and Will can feel the tension in his limbs lift slightly at the familiar sound of his own voice reciting without inflection or feeling. “A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem.” There’s something in the way Lecter watches him, something in the strange color of those eyes - not quite brown, almost ruddy, like drying blood - that sends a shiver of fire up his spine, but he hopes it won’t register in his voice. “And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played.” 

 

“Began to spin,” Dr. Lecter says, quick and commanding, and it only takes a second for Will repeat. “Let’s move on to system,” he says. “System.” 

 

“System,” Will repeats. 

 

“Feel that in your body. The system. System.” 

 

“System.” 

 

“What does it feel like to be part of the system? System.” 

 

“System.” He hears the tremble in his own voice, and the itch of blood across his face. 

 

“Is there anything in your body that wants to resist being a part of the system? System.” 

 

A two second delay. Then, “System.” 

 

Will’s expecting something - anger, a twitch of disapproval, a pause to note his delayed response time - but there’s nothing, no more than there would be if Lecter was sat on the other side of the wall, watching him unseen through the camera. “We’re going to go on,” Dr. Lecter says, calm and hypnotic, “Cells.” 

 

“Cells.” 

 

“They were all put together at a time. Cells.” 

 

“Cells.” 

 

“Millions and billions of them. Cells.” 

 

“Cells.” 

 

“Were you ever arrested? Cells.” 

 

Will repeats his part of the call and response, but finds himself concentrating more on the sound of Lecter’s voice, its depth and dark velvet quality, and that unplaceable accent unlike any he’s heard in the city before. The results of his distraction will show in his results, he knows. Lecter is watching him closer than any cyclopean camera lens could, and Will feels confident all his sins and shortcomings must be keenly visible to the strange man. 

 

“Interlinked,” Lecter says, and the corner of his mouth lifts just a fraction at the words - a motion so slight Will thinks an organic officer would have missed it entirely. “What’s it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked.” 

 

“Interlinked.” 

 

“Do they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked.” 

 

“Interlinked.” 

 

“Do you long for having your heart interlinked? Interlinked.” 

 

“Interlinked.” 

 

“Do you dream about being interlinked? Have they left a place for you where you can dream? Interlinked.” 

 

Will hesitates a fraction too long. “Interlinked.” 

 

“Do you feel that there’s a part of you missing?” Lecter asks, and there’s a pause in which Will wonders, absurdly, whether he’s actually being asked a sincere question. “Interlinked.” 

 

“Interlinked.” 

 

“Have they let you feel heartbreak? Interlinked.” 

 

Will feels confident, suddenly, that the man sitting across from him _does_ want to know his answers, his thoughts, responses beyond those he’s expected to give. What would happen, he wonders, if he answered a question sincerely? “Interlinked.” 

 

“Did you buy a present for the person you love? Within cells interlinked.” 

 

“Within cells interlinked.” 

 

“Why don’t you say that three times?” 

 

“Within cells interlinked,” Will says, too slow, his breath catching at the narrowing of those suspicious red eyes. “Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked.” 

 

“Do you have a heart,” Dr. Lecter asks, and Will resists the urge to close his eyes as he waits for his cue word. “Will.” 

 

His drooping lids fly open, and he stares back, mouth open and eyes wide, unsure of how to respond. _Yes,_ he wants to tell Lecter, _yes. I feel it beating when I sleep. I feel it in my dreams, crammed with dark thoughts, dark spots, spreading corruption like rust creeping over a metal surface._

 

The silence between them has lasted too long. “Within,” Will says, at last, because it feels like the safest thing to say. 

 

“Very good,” Dr. Lecter says, and Will blinks at the unscripted statement. “Against the dark.” 

 

“Against the dark.” 

 

“What kind of power do you have against the dark? Against the dark.” 

 

“Against the dark.” 

 

“Do you think there is such a thing as evil? Against the dark.” 

 

Will struggles to keep up, to respond to each cue quickly and without emotion. He can feel himself continuing to slip, but Lecter stays on script, and it becomes easier as they progress, words coming more and more naturally as the test drags on, longer than usual. Finally, Lecter gives the command for him to recite the full baseline once more. 

 

“A blood black nothingness,” Will says, staring across at the camera-like eyes of the man who gave him a name, and who will, he feels certain, tell him shortly that he’s failed his test. “A system of cells, within cells interlinked, within one stem. And dreadfully distinct, against the dark, a tall white fountain played.” 

 

“We’re done,” Dr. Lecter tells him, smiling. “You can collect your bonus downstairs.” 

 

“Sir?” Will asks, too confused to take his good fortune at face value and run. “I met baseline?” 

 

“I certainly wouldn’t report otherwise,” Dr. Lecter tells him, that curiously blank but pleased expression sliding back over his face as he rises. Will mirrors the motion, and lets Dr. Lecter escort him to the door with a hand placed on his back. The contact is jarring; Will can’t remember the last time he was touched, or if he’s been touched since his activation. He can feel the heat from Lecter’s palm spreading across his skin. 

 

“I’ll be seeing you, Will,” Lecter tells him, as he holds the door open for him. “Be safe out there.” 

 

The door clicks shut behind him. Will walks slowly to the stairwell, listening to the echo of his footsteps, and the sound of Lecter’s slow, velvety voice behind them, asking him if he has a heart. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will gets a present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll keep adding to this whenever I can't sleep.

**do androids dream of electric dogs?**

 

Hannibal Lecter is human, or that’s what everyone at the station assures him. Chief Crawford shuts down further probing with a stern look and a gruff, “He’s human, don’t question it,” but Will thinks he can detect a note of doubt in the Chief’s loud voice. 

 

Detective Katz shares Will’s curiosity more openly than the Chief does. “I mean, his badge and all his personal info on the system says Human with a capital H,” Katz tells him, “but there’s definitely something up with him. All files on him are sealed.” 

 

“Sounds like you’ve done some poking around,” Will says. They’re at his place, eating some of the brown instant meal that is the only thing in Will’s kitchen. 

 

Katz pops a chunk of grey protein into her mouth. “Did you know he has a higher security clearance than the Chief?” 

 

Will hadn’t known, but the information doesn’t surprise him. There’s a confidence to the way the doctor moves and speaks, the way he dismisses questions about his role in the station, or who ordered the sudden changes to the baseline procedure, that speaks of power. In fact, Will’s begun to suspect that Lecter’s paychecks Wallace, rather than the Baltimore PD. He’s certainly not buying those suits on a policeman’s salary. 

 

“This meal is absolutely disgusting,” Katz says, poking at the sludge on the tray in front of her. “Why don’t you ever let Joi make you something?” 

 

“It’s the same slop,” Will grimaces, “just prettier.” 

 

“Yeah, you know some people say you taste first with your eyes,” she shoots back. “Come on, you never use her.” 

 

“You shouldn’t have bought it for me,” Will argues. “I don’t want it.” But he activates the product nonetheless, and listens indulgently as Katz sweet talks the holograph. Other than Chief Crawford, Katz is the closest thing he has to a friend. She’s the only person who goes out of her way to spend time with him, despite his humorlessness and reclusive nature. She’s the only person he’s shared his name with, too. 

 

His skin had buzzed with heat for hours after that first encounter with Lecter. The name had floated in his mind, echoing in Lecter’s warm accent. The desire to be this identity, this _Will,_ was so strong, he found himself reluctant to tell anyone of the encounter. A secret, then, held close. To the world he remains Officer GW1-11, or G; only alone with Lecter is he _Will._

 

Only that isn’t entirely true. He is Will in his own mind as well, now, in his thoughts. It is how he refers to himself now, he finds, and he isn’t sure why - whether the habit stems from his own genuine desire, or if it is because Lecter practically ordered him to accept the name. 

 

He’d needed to tell Katz, in order to get her opinion on Lecter, and his behavior in general. Though the detective is human, and therefore finds less opportunity to interact with their new coworker, she’s almost as fascinated by his eccentricities as Will is. They’ve been bonding over it, in fact, cataloging their observations and theories, building a shared myth of Hannibal Lecter. It’s something to do, he supposes, between the routine slaughter. 

 

He’s been ordered to report for baseline assessment more frequently in the months since Dr. Lecter arrived. Will suspects he’s called for testing more often than the handful of other replicants working for the PD, though their exposure to trauma is probably about equal. Moreover, Lecter seeks him out outside of the testing room, seeming to prefer Will’s company to that of the other humans and superior officers. It’s not a habit that goes unnoticed by the rest of the station. 

 

“The boys in the lab reckon you’re a repurposed pleasure droid,” Katz informs him. Their meals resemble roast chicken now, with a side of vegetables and a scoop of mashed potatoes. Will has never tasted any of the things that appear to be on this plate, and he seriously doubts Katz has either, but she tucks into the meal with greater gusto now. Beside her, Joi sits, head in hand, examining the pair of them with a fond smile. She’s only ever on when Katz is here, and therefore seems to obey and prefer them both in equal measure, never having time to bond with or imprint more from one than the other. “They reckon Lecter is drawn to you because of your built in pleasure droid wiles.” 

 

“I didn’t realize the boys in the lab found me so alluring,” Will says. 

 

“What _does_ he seek you out for, then?” Katz asks. 

 

Will shrugs. He isn’t sure he can explain the conversations he and Lecter have. In many ways, it’s like an extension of the baseline assessment, with Lecter firing question after question at him in that cool and unhurried voice, and Will struggling to provide the right responses. Only in these conversation nothing is scripted, and Will isn’t sure what Lecter is trying assess. 

 

“He asks a lot about my memories,” Will answers her. He tries not to flinch at her bark of laughter, but some displeasure must show on his face. 

 

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Katz half apologizes, “but why would Lecter care about _your memories?_ It’s not like they’re even, you know, yours.” 

 

Will isn’t sure there’s a right way for him to take what she’s said, but he finds it hard to deny. He’d had the same thought himself, initially. Why would Hannibal care about the memories Wallace engineered into his mind? It’s unlikely that any of them ever happened to anyone, and they certainly never happened to Will. 

 

“Memories shape us,” Lecter had answered, when Will had worked up the courage to ask him. “What we remember of our lives helps determine our attitudes, our choices. If we know our past, even a false past, we can better predict our futures.” Will hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask why Lecter wanted to predict him, or, even worse, what Lecter hoped he might do. 

 

“I didn’t say I understood the man,” Will says now, and Katz dips her head in acknowledgement. She knows he’s upset, and even if she won’t apologize, Will thinks she’ll store the information, be more sensitive in the future. 

 

“Great cooking, as ever, Joi,” Katz says to the beaming holograph, after a few moments of quietly eating the holographically disguised slop. 

 

*

 

Will hadn’t expected the detective to purchase the Joi unit for him, had been dumbfounded when she’d shown up on his doorstep for one of their increasingly frequent afterwork talks - Will calls them data collection; Detective Katz calls them gossip - with the heavy box clutched in her arms. He’d tried to appear thankful, but the truth is, if Katz hadn’t insisted on installing the unit right then, Will doubts he would have gotten around to it by now. He doesn’t get along with people most of the time, and he doesn’t need to invite anymore of them into his life, whether they’re real or not. So Joi stays offline, except during Katz’s visits. Will has no problem eating his protein-rich sludge without a patina of home-cooking, or the illusion of companionship.

 

He’s rifling through the cabinet for a dehydrated meal packet to reconstitute, when there’s a knock on his apartment door. He isn’t expecting anyone, but it’s easy to guess who’s there; only Detective Katz ever visits his dingy apartment, claiming it’s a welcome change from her own dingy apartment. Will’s eyes flicker to the apparatus on the wall, and he briefly considers firing up Joi so that she can greet Katz, but then decides that if Katz wants the company of the holograph she can turn her on herself. 

 

Only it’s not Katz, but Lecter, looking out of place in the dirty narrow hallway. He’s standing straight backed and tall, clad in one of the incongruous suits he favors. The deep burgundy tie flashes like a jewel at his throat, made of some material that reflects the light like silk. There is a large canvas bag dangling from one of his hands, clearly full of something fairly weighty. Will stands, blinking silent at the apparition in his doorway, as if under a spell, until at last Lecter says simply, “Hello, Will. May I come in?” 

 

“Oh,” Will says, and steps aside to let Lecter enter. The doctor smiles at him - a tiny upturn of the right corner of his mouth - and then glides into the room, bringing the scent of something warm and clean with him. Will almost shuts the door on the creature that saunters in at Dr. Lecter’s heels. 

 

“Oh!” he says again, louder this time, as he looks at the animal. The little creature comes to sit at Lecter’s feet, unleashed and obedient. Its ears point straight up, listening alertly to the constant low din of the city outside. It takes Will less than the space of one breath to sink to his knees on the floor beside it. 

 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Lecter says, as Will extends a hand to the dog, shivering with delight as the animal sniffs and licks at his fingers. He has imprinted memories of dogs, but he’s never seen one in person. He’s seen very few animals in his life. A bulging green python slung like jewelry around a pleasure model’s deceptively willowy throat. A jewel bright humming bird darting around the commissioner’s lank copper locks. The red eyed rabbit Chief Crawford’s wife carries everywhere with her, like a white fur muff. Never a dog. “I took the liberty of bringing a gift for you.” 

 

Will looks away from the animal for the first time since spotting it, looking up at Lecter now, trying to read the blank expression he wears. _This is a joke,_ Will thinks, but there’s no laughter in those rust colored eyes. “You don’t mean,” he begins to say. 

 

“Yes,” Lecter answers, before Will can finish, “the dog.” 

 

Will looks back at the dog, and finds that he has been rubbing it behind the ear this whole time. It looks at him fondly through its big brown eyes. Its fur is soft, golden. “Why?” he asks. 

 

Lecter blinks at him. “I wanted to. Something told me,” his eyes flicker briefly to the switched off holograph projector on the wall, “artificial animals would please you more than an artificial person.” 

 

Will swallows. It had been hard enough to accept the unwanted Joi from Detective Katz - she had all but had to install the unit herself, despite his protestations over cost and unnecessariness. This is much worse. It’s not uncommon for replicants to own Joi units and other more rudimentary holographs, but an animal - artificial or otherwise - is too great a status symbol for someone like him. 

 

He stares at the dog, at its soft face that seems to smile back at him, and feels the heart the engineers at Wallace built for him breaking. Because how can he accept a gift like this, but how can he say no when he wants it so badly? 

 

“Dr. Lecter,” he begins to say, steeling himself to refuse. 

 

“Don’t bother telling me you can’t,” Lecter says, cutting him off again. Will frowns. “I know how much you want him.” 

 

“Even so,” Will swallows. “It’s not…it isn’t appropriate.” 

 

“Me giving him, or you having him?” 

 

Will laughs, marveling at the way the dog draws back in response to the noise and then leans back in to sniff his face. The warm breath tickles. He thinks of the absurdity of an animal - of _this_ elegant, beautiful animal - living in his grim apartment. The absurdity of owning a status symbol, when he has no status in society at all. The absurdity of Lecter showing up here to give him a gift like this, apparently on a whim. “Take your pick.” 

 

“I won’t take him from here when I leave,” Lecter says, “and he won’t follow me. It’s up to you whether you keep him, I suppose, but I hope that you will.” His voice is smooth as the surface of a river stone, pleasant and cool. 

 

“Why give him to me?” Will asks, unable to look away from the dog, from the way his fur curls around Will’s fingers. 

 

“I thought you would like him,” Lecter says. “And I believe my suspicions were correct. You seem quite taken with him, and he with you.” 

 

Will looks up in time to see the half smile that flashes briefly across Lecter’s face. He wouldn’t call the look gentle, but it is fond. “I - yeah,” Will says. “I mean, thank you.” He frowns. “This still feels inappropriate, though.” 

 

“Perhaps it is,” Lecter shrugs. “I don’t mind if you don’t.” 

 

Will’s hand shakes, slightly, and he hides it in the abundant fur at the dog’s throat. The electric animal breathes hot against his face. “I remember having a dog when I was a child,” Will says, wondering if this is what Lecter wants from him in return, but the man stops him. 

 

“Tell me,” Lecter says, “over dinner. I brought food for the three of us, if you’d be so good as to help me set the table.” 

 

Will scrambles to his feet, heading to the kitchen without giving himself time to even begin processing the surreal occurrences of the evening thus far. Who knows what’s coming next, he thinks, searching the cabinets to produce two mismatched plates and the appropriate cutlery. It’s a challenge; most of his recent meals have been eaten off the disposable, easily degradable trays that come with the packaged instant meals he buys from the police commissary. There’s been the occasional waxy paper take out boxes, but nothing that would have required actual plates. He’s not sure where the chipped ceramic plates he finds in the back of his cabinet came from; he doesn’t remember purchasing them. 

 

There’s an even bigger surprise waiting in the other room. His jaw drops when he sees the food Lecter has spread across his humble table. For a second his eyes dart to the Joi hardware, but its red off light remains shining. “Is that real beef?” 

 

Lecter smiles wanly at him. “Something like it, yes. Close enough to be indistinguishable in taste, though a deal more humane.” He accepts the flatware from Will and begins to plate the food. “I find it superior to the stuff you get from protein farms in every way, though of course, such a diet could never sustain the population the way the protein farms can.” 

 

It’s delicious, rich and smokey and smooth. Will’s never tasted beef, or pork, or chicken, or fish. This is what he’s dreamt meat would taste like, if it still existed and was still legal. He’s heard rumors of proper carnivores off-world, and he supposes it’s possible the other half have come so far. Down here on earth, Will eats worms with the other peasants. 

 

It’s in his mind to what this non-beef, non-protein farmed meal _is_ , but he honestly doesn’t care. He’s heard of fresh vegetables, tofu and tempeh still available to the very wealthy. Why anyone so rich would want to dine in Will’s depressing studio, with only a replicant for company, he can’t imagine. 

 

“I was pleased to see you kept your name,” Lecter tells him, between graceful bites of his dinner. Will has to force himself to stop shoveling food into his mouth in order to answer. 

 

“How do you know I _did_?” he challenges. “What does that even mean - how do I keep a name?” 

 

That earns him another of Lecter’s inscrutable smiles. He’s found that Lecter appreciates his rougher edges in a way that other humans, excepting maybe Detective Katz, most certainly do _not_. He’s a Nexus 9, incapable of resistance, but even so, his demeanor makes people nervous. A trifle too rebellious, in word if not in deed. Some factory defect, he’s heard certain of his colleagues surmise, and he can’t say for certain they’re wrong. It’s not enough to retire him for, but it’s enough to have made him something of a pariah, even among replicants. That, and his job, of course. 

 

“It’s what you call yourself, in your thoughts, isn’t it?” Lecter asks, and Will feels his heart thundering with beats so deep they seem to shake his entire body. The way Lecter is looking at him makes him feel naked, embarrassed. He feels his face flushing with a sudden wave of heat. “It’s alright, you know. Many replicants give themselves names, in private, shared only with close friends. It’s rarely spoken of, but it happens quite often.” 

 

“How would you know?” Will asks. 

 

“I speak to a lot of replicants,” Lecter says, and Will feels his breath come short, as if he’s just tripped. “Would you like a second helping, Will?” 

 

Will holds his plate out, unsmiling, but unable to turn down seconds. He chews, savoring each delicious mouthful and trying not to think about why Lecter is here, or how many other replicants he’s visited like this, and what may have happened to them. The dog shifts under the table, reminding Will that he’s there. 

 

“Uh, what does the dog eat?” he asks, trying to maintain eye contact, trying not to shovel the food into his mouth. 

 

Lecter gestures towards the tote he’s left on Will’s floor. “I’ve brought food for him,” he answers. “You’ll want to feed him twice a day.” 

 

Will nods, hard. Lecter is right; as inappropriate as it is, he does want the dog, so badly, and wants to be good at this. There’s a problem, though, one he finds himself almost ashamed to mention, but dinner is drawing to a close, and he has to bring it up.

 

“I can’t keep him,” he says, staring down at his plate, feeling the warm weight of the dog leaning against his legs now. “I don’t know if you failed to notice the slur spray painted across my front door - ”

 

“Skin job,” Lecter says bluntly, cocking his head at Will’s flinch. “I’ve heard some of the other officers refer to you as such.”

 

Not just the other officers, Will thinks to himself bitterly. “People around here know what I am,” he says, forcing himself to meet the man across from him’s eyes now. “I’m neither liked nor respected. The idea of me waiting by the elevator, walking down the block with a…with an _animal…_ it’s unseemly.” 

 

“Why?” Hannibal asks at once, voice and face carefully void of all emotion other than curiosity. 

 

“A status symbol like that,” Will scoffs, “for a skin job blade runner like me? I’d be jumped before I made it out the front door. It’s not safe,” he says, looking down again, to the golden tail he can see poking out from the table, “for me or for him.” 

 

Lecter regards him carefully, then, searching for deception, perhaps, for a sign that this is simply another form of protesting something Will deems inappropriate. There’s no lie in his face, though. Everything he’s said is regrettably true. 

 

“It’d be wasted on me anyway,” he mutters in conclusion, leaning his leg into the warmth of the the dog. He feels its sigh. 

 

“That’s nonsense,” Lecter replies firmly. “But very well; I can see I miscalculated the feasibility of this gift. It wasn’t my intention to burden you or compromise your safety.” 

 

Will wants to ask what him what exactly his intention had been, showing up at Will’s apartment with such an elaborate gift. He can’t bring himself to do more than lean down to stroke the dog’s golden fur again, feeling slightly resentful at Lecter, for giving him the brief hope that he _could_ have something so pure and wonderful. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, as much to the dog as to Lecter. “I hope you can return him. I know you don’t want a dog.” 

 

“I don’t,” Lecter says, and Will’s heart sinks at the words, though he chides himself for daring to be disappointed by what _has_ to happen, “but you do. I will keep him.” 

 

Will blinks, not sure he’s heard correctly. “Excuse me?” 

 

“May we visit again?” Lecter asks. “Surely your neighbors will not approach you while I’m here.” 

 

Will isn’t sure _what_ his neighbors would make of Lecter. He finds himself slightly curious about it. “Alright,” he says. “I mean, thank you. That’s…thank you.” 

 

It’s kinder than Will has any right to expect anyone to be. He swallows hard around the tightness forming in his throat. 

 

“Think nothing of it,” Lecter tells him. 

 

They finish the meal in silence.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal visits and Will gets to ask some questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read, leave kudos or comments. You each encourage me so much. <3

It becomes a thing - first two or three times a week, then gradually three or four. It’s scarcely been a month when Will realizes he feels more at ease with Lecter in his home than he does without him there. Without him, the tiny apartment feels cavernous, the nights too long and empty. There’s a certain comfort in his presence, a sense of security that follows him. Not to mention the peacefulness and perpetual good cheer accompanying the dog Lecter brings with him each time. 

 

They walk the dog around the neighborhood, stopping occasionally for ramen. More often Lecter brings food for all three of them, delicious meals of fresh produce and what tastes like actual meat. Impossibilities, Will thinks, but wonderful impossibilities. His mind reels when he tries to consider the money and status such meals suggest lie at Lecter’s disposal, and his brain goes blank at the question of what someone with those kind of resources is doing administering baselines to replicants on earth. 

 

“Tell me about your mother,” Lecter says, one evening after their walk. The dog is sprawled out on the rug in front of Will’s bed. Lecter sits in one of the two dining chairs, glass of cheap whiskey in hand, facing Will, who is sitting with his back against the bed and his legs straight out in front of him, hand buried in the dog’s golden fur. He laughs. 

 

“I don’t remember one,” Will says. “Maybe they forgot to imprint one, or maybe I’m meant to infer she left when I was young.” 

 

“Why laugh about it?” Lecter asks, sipping his drink. Will rescues his own glass a moment before the dog’s wagging tail knocks it over. The liquor burns down is throat. 

 

“You’re always asking me about my memories,” he says, “my family, my past, but we’re both aware that none of those things exist. You know everything about me, even though there’s nothing real to know.” 

 

“Not everything,” Lecter murmurs, “not yet.” Will fights the shiver those words bring, the feeling of being cut open and spread out for examination. “Tell me something real, then,” Lecter says. “How many replicants have you retired?” 

 

His mind flickers over their faces. “Nearly fifty,” he answers. “My incept date was two years ago last month. I average 2.3 retirements a month.” 

 

“Better than most,” Lecter says, “in this precinct particularly. Do you remember your first?” 

 

“I remember all of them,” Will bites back. “But maybe I want to ask some questions for a change.” 

 

“An answer for an answer, then,” Lecter says, “quid pro quo. Very well, Will, your answer first, if you would.” 

 

Will sighs. “It was a week after my incept,” he recalls, forcing his mind back onto something he doesn’t often think about. “I was assigned to check out rumors of a Nexus 8 living in one of the brothels downtown. The Nexus 9s working there gave her up when the chief gave them the command over the prompter, but I could tell they didn’t want to. Mostly because when it was me asking they told me to fuck off. It was the first time it occurred to me that our kind could still want freedom, even if we could never achieve or attempt it.

 

Lecter’s eyes shine. “What did you do to the Nexus 8?” 

 

“She came with me willingly, until we were almost to the car. Then she made a break for it, shoved me off balance and took off running.” He can remember the way her limbs had moved, legs carrying her a little slower than a human might move, though he tries not to bring the visuals to mind. C level physical capabilities; built for pleasure, not strength or speed. “I had my gun out and had retired her before I even processed what was happening.” 

 

“You were just doing what you were built for.” 

 

“I suppose,” Will says. “My turn to ask a question?” 

 

“I suppose.” 

 

He takes a deep breath. There’s no telling how long this opportunity might last. Might as well go for the big ones first, so he begins with something he’s wondered since their first meeting. “Why aren’t you living off world?” 

 

It feels strange, asking a question rather than simply answering them. Generous of Lecter, allowing this game of exchanges, Will thinks. He could just as easily have ordered Will to tell him what he wanted to know. Ot simply, casually, told him to do so. It would have amounted to much the same thing. But Lecter never orders, apart from during baselines. Will can’t recall him telling much, either. Instead he asks, suggests, allows Will the opportunity the acquiesce on his own. The illusion of free will, but even an illusion is more courtesy than Will is normally afforded. 

 

“I own a good deal of property off world, in fact,” Lecter tells him, voice light, as if this is to be expected. In a way it is, because Will certainly can’t say he’s shocked by the revelation. “I reside there the majority of the time, in fact.” 

 

“Quite the commute,” Will remarks, turning to his glass. When Lecter smiles at him he finds himself abruptly grateful for the steadying warmth of the dog beneath his fingertips. 

 

“It’s undoubtably worth it,” the doctor says, “though honestly, the trouble isn’t as great as one might imagine. I keep an apartment in the city. And inter-world transport has advanced by bounds in the past decade.” 

 

“Praise be to Wallace,” Will says, raising his glass in a mock toast. He regrets the joke at once. “Your turn,” he hurries, hoping Lecter won’t think much of the remark. 

 

“What was your worst retirement?” Lecter asks, not hurriedly, but quick enough that Will knows he’d had this question in mind, waiting. Will frowns, concentrating his gaze on the dog panting happily up at him. 

 

He tries not to picture it, while he tells. “The case I had before you administered the baseline to me for the first time,” he says, words slow, hand stroking over silky ears, through golden fur. “There were supposed to be three of them to retire, but I only had to do one, in the end. They had some kind of…pact, I guess, is the word for it.” He swallows. “They retired each other.” 

 

“What made that the worst?” Lecter asks, but Will shakes his head. 

 

“It’s my turn,” he insists, and Lecter acquiesces with a forward tilt of his head. Will scowls to buy himself a second more to decide. Questions clamor in his mind. If Lecter owns property off world, what is he doing on earth? Why has the baseline test process changed? What purpose does the change serve, and who ordered it? Whom does Lecter _really_ work for? Why did he give Will a name - or try to give him a dog? Why does he keep coming around Will’s modest hovel, when there have got to be better places for him to spend his time? 

 

“Have I ever failed my baseline?” he asks, because he needs this acknowledged, needs the truth spoken, more than he needs anything else. 

 

Infuriatingly, Lecter doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he slides from his chair to the floor with a motion that makes the word graceful appear in Will’s mind. Will feels his heart beginning to pick up speed at Lecter’s approach, and he thinks of Chief Crawford’s wife’s white rabbit, the way its bioengineered heart had raced under his hand the time she’d smilingly encouraged him to touch it. 

 

“She’s a prey animal,” Mrs. Crawford had told him, “naturally fearful of anything she perceives as a predator.” Will remembers her words, and wonders whether Lecter sees him as prey. 

 

The doctor maneuvers himself to sit across from Will, petting the dog between them. “You have not passed your baseline once,” Lecter answers him, at last, and Will’s breath leaves him in shock even though it’s what he had been expecting, “in all the time I’ve known you.” 

 

Will lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. It leaves him with a rough, shaky sound that Lecter definitely hears. Will wants to ask more, but he knows already that he’ll be denied. Lecter waits patiently, until Will remembers the question. 

 

“It was the worst,” he says, “because of how much they wanted to be free, even free in choosing how they would,” a half second pause, “end. I imagined what that would be like,” he says, “and it was horrible, to feel that desire.” 

 

“For a being manufactured without empathy,” Lecter says, “you are surprisingly adept at empathizing with your quarry.” 

 

“Defective unit,” Will says, tapping his own head with the hand that holds his glass. He brings it back down to mouth level. “Why haven’t you turned me over the higher ups? Let them retire me, or do whatever it is they do with blade runners who the race out ran?” 

 

Lecter pets the dog between them, and Will watches their hands brushing through fur parallel to one another. “Because,” he says, “I’m not here to determine whether you meet baseline, and I don’t work for the Baltimore PD.” 

 

Will’s heart is reminding him of Mrs. Crawford’s rabbit more and more. His nostrils flare over his breaths, and though he isn’t panting, he doesn’t think he could speak again just yet. 

 

Fortunately - or unfortunately - it isn’t his turn to speak. 

 

Lecter finishes his drink before asking his next question, sets the glass well aside, out of reach of friendly wags. His every movement seems slow to Will, deliberate. His voice is as slow and smooth as smoke when he speaks, and Will closes his eyes at the sound of it, unable to face this situation even with his gaze averted. 

 

“What’s it like to play with your dog?” Lecter asks, and Will’s eyes fly open, brain prickling with a trained response. It’s a baseline question, he knows at once with a feeling of shock and the uncomfortable itch of something very familiar in an unfamiliar setting. 

 

He’s answered this question dozens of times, his response immediate, but back then the only dog he’d known had been one in a memory he knew wasn’t his. Now he could provide a unique answer to the question, and he considers for the first time what it might be. They’ve taken the dog to a wide, empty lot to let him run a few times. Will had surprised himself the first time by picking up a piece of rubble and throwing it hard. Something in him had anticipated the way the dog blurred by at top speed. When he returned, smiling and out of breath, Will had looked up at Lecter’s amused face, felt himself smiling too. 

 

Of course, playing with the dog necessarily entails spending time with Lecter, and so the question of what it is like to play with his dog has another meaning as well, besides the two already crowding it. How does it feel, to spend this much time with Lecter? He thinks of the quiet spaces between the man’s questioning, of the way the questioning always manages to feel like a conversation instead of just an interrogation. He thinks of the vast emptiness of his apartment when Lecter is not here, filling it up. A different kind of companionship than the one he’d intended to give. 

 

Will blinks. His mind is bursting with a flood of emotion and sensation, a wave of memories which _are_ his. But no words come. He goes with the response that feels the safest. 

 

“Interlinked.” 

 

Lecter’s eyes shimmer at him, over the dog they are both still touching. Will’s eyes flutter over a long blink. He thinks of their hands on the dog, a shared contact point although they don’t touch one another. He imagines he can feel the heat of Lecter’s hand on his own. 

 

He knows without needing to be told that the game they’ve been playing is over. At least, this one is. Lecter stands, and Will follows him, feeling the alcohol as he gets to his feet too quickly. He reaches out for the wall, but Lecter grabs his arm to steady him first. His hand is strong, fingers firm around Will’s elbow. 

 

“Careful now,” Lecter says, softly. He brings his other hand to Will’s shoulder. His skin is warm, almost hot. Will can feel him through the fabric of his sweater. Lecter’s gaze on him is almost as hot as the touch of his skin. Will blinks up at him, feeling no steadier for all his help. “You should drink some water, before you go to bed.” 

 

“I know how to drink,” Will tells him, but there’s little force behind his words, and Lecter merely nods. 

 

There’s a brief pause, then Lecter says, “Do not tell anyone about our discussion tonight, Will.” He squeezes Will’s elbow and shoulder once, then releases him. Will feels the itch of compulsion. “I’m sorry to be so blunt. I thought it simpler, however, this way. For both of us.” 

 

They part like always, as if nothing out of the ordinary has transpired. Will walks Lecter and the dog to the door, a little less gracefully than usual, and watches till they’ve disappeared around the corner to the hallway that leads to the elevator. Then he closes and locks the door, thankful he’s encountered none of the building’s other tenants, and finds himself alone in a silence so much vaster than it was before Lecter appeared in his life. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will has an unusual day.

**a better life awaits you in the off world colonies**

 

His social engagements with Lecter have left him little time for Detective Katz. She tells him as much over breakfast in the station’s mess hall - hot grey porridge and scalding imitation coffee. 

 

“You’re getting all kinds of new intel,” she complains around a mouthful of porridge, “first hand, eye witness account stuff, and you’re so busy gathering data you don’t even have time to share it.” 

 

“I could share now,” Will offers, but the detective makes a face expressing disdain for more than the bland breakfast. 

 

“Dinner,” she insists. “So much more intimate. Plus, I miss Joi. This slop could use some dressing up.” 

 

He wonders how Katz will react when he tells her about the meals Lecter’s been preparing. When he tells her about the _dog_. He wishes he could tell her what he learned last night. He remembers the slide of Lecter voice as he spoke, remembers the chill that raced along his spine. He doesn’t know how he would begin to explain it to Katz. Lecter was right; it’s simpler not having the choice to share what Lecter told him burdening his mind. He focuses on the simplicity of his relief, rather than on the latent feeling of bitterness any reminder of his unwavering obedience invariably evokes in him. 

 

“Okay,” he nods, “dinner. Tonight?” 

 

“Tell me something,” Katz says, “to tide me over till tonight.” 

 

Will thinks. “He knows how to cook,” he says, “better than Joi.” 

 

The detective’s eyes widen, and Will allows himself a small smile at the look on her face. Before Katz can give voice to any of the questions Will can see clamoring for primacy in her mind, their conversation is interrupted by Chief Crawford bearing down on them. 

 

“Got something for you to check out, G,” the Chief barks, tossing Will a tablet with the report details. “Breakfast when you get back.” 

 

Will skims the report. It’s always a good idea to get some sense of the mission before departing - easier to ask questions in person where he can get a read for the Chief’s emotions as well as his meaning. His eyebrows shoot up. “Two dead?” 

 

“Humans?” Katz interjects. “Should this be a homicide case?” 

 

“It should not,” the Chief says, voice gruff and clearly nonplussed at being so questioned. “The coroner’s concluded the killer could only have been a replicant, A Level. If something concerns you, Detective Katz, I’ll be sure to let you know.” Katz shrinks under the Chief’s glare. He snorts, apparently satisfied, and swivels his scrutiny to Will. “Why are you still here?” 

 

* 

 

The address in the report is on the closest thing to the good side of town Baltimore has to offer these days. It’s the kind of neighborhood in which Will can easily imagine Lecter leasing his home away from home. In fact, a number of the residents of the building - including the victims - spend most of their time off world. The dead couple Will is standing over kept their apartment in order to have somewhere to stay during business trips, but Will’s heard of the very rich maintaining earth apartments out of nostalgia. He can’t imagine anyone missing this place badly enough to visit it if leaving was an option. 

 

Will stares down at the pair of them, laid out on matching metal slabs. Her face is a mess of broken bones, skull caved inward as if crushed, according to the coroner’s report. Her chest gapes, ribcage spread out and empty. Her partner is less terrible to look upon, but only by comparison. Broken neck, and missing eyes. Will has seen nearly half a hundred one-eyed replicants bleeding out on the ground, after he’d put them there, but retirement is different from death. It has to be different, of course; society rests on that difference. 

 

Sometimes he worries that he believes the distinction is in name alone. He fears retirement, seeks to avoid it if possible, but accepts that it is an eventual certainty. Do humans feel any differently about their own end process? Perhaps the hope of an afterlife is the separation; the entry fee to any decent afterlife is the soul, and the techs at Wallace can’t grow those. 

 

A human could have done this, Will thinks, examining the bodies. He understands why the report says replicant. It’s not the strength the deed took, though it must have required a great deal, but the inhumanity of the display. Humans don’t kill each other like this. Murder rates are low, lower than at any previous point in the 21st century. There’s not much to kill each other over; everyone has access to the same meagre resources. Most of the things worth killing for are off world. There’s still murder, or Katz would be out of a job, but it doesn’t look like this - this passionate, red and jagged wreck. Life has acquired a sanctity for them, the humans, with which it did not glow in previous eras. It is sacred, to be defended and upheld. 

 

Still, Will thinks, a human could have done this. 

 

And then he grimaces, because that isn’t what the Chief will want to hear. And Will can’t say for certain it was a human who killed them, so all he’s doing is creating ambiguity. At least, that’s what Crawford is bound to say. 

 

Will has the best rates of any of the district’s blade runners. It makes sense the Chief would pick him for this kind of anomaly. Katz has suggested he should be proud of this dubious achievement, but pride is a human emotion. They’re careful about keeping it down in their servants, after what happened in 2020. 

 

There’s no evidence on the body, nothing the lab missed, nothing to go off of. Only a cold sense of ruthless disdain, clinging to the kill like a stench. Flipping his collar up against the dirty city air, Will heads back into the street. He’s contemplating his options - none seem very good - when his watch buzzes. Will looks down as the little screen at his wrist flashes to life, showing him the Chief, looking even grimmer than he usually does. 

 

“Chief,” Will begins, deciding the best course of action will be to tell the Chief honestly what he’s found - no evidence and nothing to imply this was a replicant other than the cruelty with which the crime was executed. But the man cuts him off sharply before he can begin. 

 

“Report back to the station immediately, Officer GW1-11,” Crawford orders, and Will’s mind pricks at the use of his full serial, “my office.” 

 

*

 

This new development at least delays Will’s having to think of how to approach the case he’s been set on. It does little else to ease his anxiety, however, particularly when he enters the Chief’s office to see his personnel file open on the screen spanning Crawford’s gleaming metal desk. The Chief flicks the screen to darkness when he enters. 

 

“Have a seat,” he says, and Will does, despite the strong urge to flee. There’s an uncomfortably long pause, then, the Chief scrutinizing him with a hint of something that looks alarmingly like concern in his gaze. It’s on the tip of Will’s tongue to break the silence by asking if this meeting has anything to do with the case the Chief set him to earlier this morning - though he has a sinking feeling it has more to do with his recent and ongoing instability - but the Chief speaks, at last, before Will gets his chance. 

 

“You’re going off world,” the Chief says, and his mouth twists with distaste before he speaks the rest of his sentence, “Lecter’s orders. You’ve got three hours to pack.” 

 

“Sir?” Will asks. There are too many questions for him to choose just one. His tone and expression must convey as much, because the Chief sighs heavily, and sinks further back into his chair. His hands steeple over his wide chest, and he regards Will in silence for a moment. 

 

“Believe me, G, I share your surprise. Well, I mean, I had some suspicions about why Lecter was sent here. Still, wasn’t expecting him to pull rank and order you transferred off world.” 

 

“What for?” Will manages to settle on a question. 

 

Crawford shrugs. “Classified? He wouldn’t say, and believe me, I asked. All he’d say was he was sent to recruit from our forces, and his security level gives him the authority to do so.” 

 

Will’s head is swimming the way it did the night before, when he and Lecter had gotten into his supply of greasy imitation whiskey. He remembers the dizziness that pitched him when Lecter gripped his arm to steady him, the frantic light beats of his heart, and this is almost as bad. “It does?” he asks, feeling uselessly overwhelmed. 

 

“I’m afraid so,” the Chief replies. “His codes check out. He’s some big shot from the Bureau of Off World Security.” 

 

“What do they need to recruit a blade runner from earth for?” Will asks, and that’s a significantly better question than just asking the Chief to repeat himself. “I’d figure off world has the best blade runners available. Best of everything available, right?” 

 

Again, the Chief shrugs. It’s an uncharacteristic motion, and it looks awkward when he does it. “I asked that, too,” he says. 

 

“And?” 

 

“He said I should infer the BOWS wanted someone with experience.” 

 

It’s a brush off, Will knows, as good as telling him to mind his own business. The Chief must have known it, too, judging by the gleam of rage in his eyes. “If it were up to me I’d keep you here,” he says, and Will looks down. “You’re the best we’ve got. No doubt that’s why he wants you. Nothing either of us can do about it, but it’s the city’s loss, not yours. Think of it as a promotion.” The Chief attempts to do something with his face that Will assumes is meant to be a smile. “A better life awaits you, right?” 

 

Will’s attempt at a smile is probably not much better. “Emigrate or degenerate.” 

 

The Chief’s grimacing smile fades from his face. “Pack whatever you can carry with you. You’re to report to the launch pad on the roof at 1:00.” The Chief stands, and Will stands, too. For a second he thinks the other man might be about to offer him his hand to shake, but of course he only nods. “You’ll be missed,” he says, which is generous enough. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will says his goodbyes to earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the one off I wrote because I woke up too early on a weekend is turning into a fully plotted sci fi nightmare. Oops.

**Mors Certa, Vita Incerta**

 

Packing doesn’t take long; there’s not much more than clothes that’s worth packing. It takes him about ten minutes to fold and cram his belongings into the canvas duffel bag he finds under his bed. As with the dishes he found at the back of a cabinet, Will has no memory of the duffel bag’s origin. He can’t remember purchasing it at any point in the past two years, and anything he remembers before that is make believe. Then again, he can’t remember intentionally acquiring most of what’s in his apartment. Looking at the fridge full of instant meals, the bathroom full of disposable razors, the contents of his life suddenly seem like so much trash, and he finds himself relieved by the thought of leaving it all behind. 

 

He uses the next fifty minutes to uninstall the Joi unit from his wall. He finds the box it came in under the sink in the bathroom, and with the box tucked under one arm and his bag slung over the opposite shoulder, he makes his way to his vehicle. He calls Katz as he guides the craft away from his apartment building for the last time. 

 

“Hey,” the detective greets him, “you okay? You look a little pale.” 

 

Will laughs, because an hour ago his biggest concern had been his human colleagues suspecting, rightly, that something was _off_ about him, forcing the dark secret Lecter’s been keeping for him out into the light at last. That fear feels far away now, receding from him the way earth will shortly do. “I’m emigrating,” he says, and then hurries before she can speak. “Meet me at the ramen stand by the station in fifteen minutes.” 

 

He tells her everything he can, beginning with the night Lecter arrived at his door with a dog in tow and culminating with the interstellar taxi he’ll be boarding in an hour and a half. He includes it all - the intimacy that grew from Lecter’s constant questioning, the strange sense of security Lecter invoked, the way he’d filled the empty places Will hadn’t noticed gaping all around him - everything except their conversation from the night before. He does regret Lecter’s command, now, because something in that conversation was the catalyst, surely, for the orders Lecter gave the Chief this morning. He needs her opinion, her insight into humanity, now more than ever. He has a feeling his need will only continue to increase, but who knows when they’ll be able to speak again? 

 

“Wow,” Katz says, voice flat and noodles cooling untouched on the high table in front of her. “That’s…can I just stick with, Wow?” 

 

“I’m leaving the planet in an hour. I’m going to need you to speed up the process of getting over shock.” 

 

Katz nods. “Okay,” she says, eyebrows slowly descending from her hairline. “Okay. But damn, G, that’s a lot to take in.” 

 

“You’re telling me,” Will laughs shakily. He runs a hand through his hair, doing little to tame it. “But I’m going to be beyond hope in sixty minutes, so I’m going to need your unparalleled wisdom now. What, in your expert, human opinion, the ever living fuck is going on?” 

 

The detective shakes her head. “Too much uncertainty,” she scowls. “We need to assess what we know before we can hypothesize about what we don’t.” 

 

Will nods. “Okay,” he says, “we know Lecter is powerful.” Property off world _and_ on it meant wealth. Those suits and gleaming faux leather shoes didn’t look cheap, either. Affiliation with BOWS and a security code outranking the Chief meant influence, maneuverability. No prince, Will thinks, but perhaps the one who guides him; Lecter moves with a confidence that only comes from exerting complete control over one’s situation. 

 

“Agreed,” Katz says. “And we know he likes you.” 

 

He frowns. “Not necessarily,” Will says, “I think it’s more that he finds me interesting.” 

 

“I think it might be both,” Katz says, “but we can just say interesting if you prefer. Although maybe you should take inventory of what you know about yourself, while you’re doing all this reflection.” 

 

“We know he’s human,” Will forges ahead, ignoring the detective’s eye roll at his clumsy evasion. It’s counterproductive, he knows; he wanted her help, wanted her to know the full truth, so what good is losing his nerve now going to do him? “If he out ranks the Chief and has the security ranking to have me transferred off world, he _can’t_ be a replicant.” No skin job would ever be trusted with that kind of power, or placed in a position superior to a human of any sort. They are servants, he thinks, first and foremost. 

 

“We know he lies,” Katz says, after a brief silence. Will breathes in, feeling his heart rate kick up in his chest again. “He wasn’t just here to administer a new form of baseline.” He’s so relieved she’s arrived at this conclusion on her own, without the need of his sealed secrets, he thinks he might actually cry for a moment. “He was looking for you, Will. Somehow, for some reason. Maybe he didn’t know it was you specifically he was looking for, you just fit his criteria. He’s been grooming you since you met him.” 

 

“For what?” Will manages to breathe. It’s like hearing his deepest suspicions, all the things he cannot even bare to say to himself, screamed through a loudspeaker.

 

“That’s where our uncertainties begin,” Katz admits, “but I have a feeling you’re about to find out. And, because of our third certainty, we know that whatever reason Lecter gives you, might not be the real one.” 

 

Will breathes out hard. “Just more uncertainty,” he says. “Does it ever end?” 

 

“Mors certa,” Katz says, “vita incerta. I had a boss back when I was in my twenties who used to say that. I think he thought it made hime sound smart, but it’s hard to look like a true intellectual when you’re melting scrap metal, no matter how much Latin you speak.” 

 

“What’s it mean?” Will asks. 

 

“Death is certain,” she tells him, “life is uncertain. I think it means the only certainty in life is that we’ll die.” 

 

“Or that only in death will we find the answers to our unanswerable questions,” he says, voice soft. He doesn’t point out that in his life, death is a probability but not a certainty. That open life span Wallace designs his replicants to enjoy is usually best left unmentioned when talking with even the most tolerant humans; immortality makes even the best of them uncomfortable. The distorted warble of an advertisement jingle drowns out the end of his sentence, anyway. “Listen,” he says, “I have to go in a minute. I brought Joi. You should take her.” 

 

“Maybe you’ll have somewhere to set her up when you get off world,” Katz begins to protest, but they both know that’s unlikely. 

 

“I never appreciated her as much as you do,” he says. “I’d just leave her in the box, never switch her on again. She’ll be happier with you.” He thinks of them, bantering before dinner, and wonders why Katz didn’t just buy the unit for herself in the first place. 

 

“ _Can_ she be happy?” Katz asks. 

 

Will nods, once. “If she gets the chance.” 

 

* 

 

The city swirls with familiar lights, towering buildings flashing with screens, neon kanji dominating the sky. All of it growing smaller and smaller as Will gazes down from the window of their taxi. He’s thought of it as a slum his whole life, and it undeniably is that, but as he watches his home planet drift out of view he finds himself struck by a sudden sensation of loss, strengthened by its unexpectedness. 

 

It’s cool inside the cabin of the taxi, just this side of being outright cold. Will draws his jacket tighter. The driver is a large and silent man who reminds Will of a character in a horror movie he remembers seeing as a child, in a childhood that wasn’t his. For a moment he’s tempted to close his eyes, lose himself briefly in the implanted memory, but he forces himself to keep his eyes open and on the lights that slowly become indistinguishable from stars, before vanishing beyond the smog. 

 

It’s only the two of them - him and Dr. Lecter - in the vehicle, besides the driver. Three of them, if you count the dog curled up on the floor between them in a tight, lightly snoring ball. Will turns from the window to find Lecter watching him, rather than the view. 

 

“I’ve never been off world before,” Will tells him. 

 

“I know,” Lecter says. Of course, Will thinks, that would have been easy knowledge to obtain. It’s in his records, and anyway, a two year old blade runner for an earth police district would have no business off world. 

 

The thought brings the ever present question back to the forefront of his mind. “Why am I going?” 

 

Lecter regards him placidly for a long moment. Will has the sensation of being peeled alive; it feels as if he’s exposed down to muscle and nerve. “Your true talents,” Lecter says at last, “were being wasted on earth.” There’s a flash of a smile, the hint of sharp teeth. “We will find better uses for you off world, Will. And I believe you will find the off world colonies more to your liking than earth.” 

 

Will wants to ask why _his_ preferences should matter, but finds there are, as always, too many questions from which to choose. “My true talents?” he decides to start with. “I’m a blade runner. Every major PD has at least three of us. There’s not a whole lot of variation.” That was an understatement. Will had been immeasurably grateful not to work at a station with a doppleganger. “We might as well all have been grown in the same lab, doctor.”

 

“Ah, but there is something different about you, is there not?” Lecter asks. “Something that makes you unique. Your ‘factory defect’ as you put it, a heightened power of observation, a capacity for empathy, even.”

 

Will’s skin pricks. He knows what Lecter is talking about. How many times has he thought to himself that there was something that set him apart from the other replicants in the city? Then again, maybe all blade runners were predisposed to such a thought, conditioned through implanted memories to view themselves as separate from others of their kind as a distancing mechanism to make their jobs easier, perhaps. “Don’t forget my unique brand of charm,” Will says. Lecter’s smile is more pronounced at that. 

 

“Indeed,” he says, “I also chose you because I knew you were someone I could work well with.” 

 

I’m not even someone, Will wants to say. Certainly not someone to work _with,_ like an equal. “What is it you want me to do?” 

 

Lecter looks back at him in silence. The look on his face is unreadable, but if Will had to describe it he’d use words like _vaguely_ _curious_ and _profoundly_ _calm._ He has the faintest suspicion Lecter is deciding what to tell him, is _making it up in his head,_ even. Finally, the man across from him says, “The killer Chief Crawford sent you after this morning has left the planet for the off world colonies.” 

 

Will blinks. Then he frowns. “How do you know?” 

 

“He came here from off world to begin with,” Lecter says, “he’s been leaving similar crime scenes off world. BOWS has been trying to apprehend him for several years, in fact.” He reaches into the inside pocket of his perfectly pressed suit jacket, extracting a thin black tablet. He passes it to Will and the screen comes to life in his hands, and Will flinches at the raw red violence displayed on the little screen in his hands. There is something almost too terrible to look upon in these photos, as in the bodies he’d visited earlier in the day. “He’s caused quite a panic in the colonies, as you might imagine,” Lecter says. 

 

Will swipes the screen to bring the next photo into view. And the next. And the next. He thinks perhaps the source of the terror is the captivation, the way the images make him want to close his eyes and the way they prevent him from doing so. “That doesn’t explain how you know he’s left earth, though,” Will says. Lecter’s eyes flash. 

 

“It’s his pattern,” Lecter says easily. “He chooses a city on earth, leaves a scene like the one you saw this morning, and returns off world. He’s done it on four previous occasions.” 

 

Will takes a last look at the picture on the screen. The figure in the photo scarcely seems human anymore, and Will forces himself to look away, to look up into Lecter’s dark eyes, before handing the tablet back over the sleeping dog to Lecter. “I don’t know why you think I’ll be able to find him, when you couldn’t.” 

 

“I believe you will prove uniquely capable of seeing him where others have failed to do so,” Lecter says. Will frowns, but says nothing in response - what more can he possibly say, except questions Lecter will respond to with these vague half answers. “You’re angry,” Lecter says, after a moment, “that I ordered you off world.” 

 

Will shrugs. “Not angry,” he says, but he hears how false his voice sounds. No one - even in the memory implants that rattle in his head like loose bits of scrap metal - has ever accused him of feeling anger. Anger implies agency, implies that he is entitled to experience an emotional reaction to orders. “Disconcerted, maybe,” Will offers, as a safer alternative to anger. 

 

“No,” Lecter disagrees, voice firm but nonthreatening. It’s okay, he seems to be saying, to tell me how you’re feeling; it’s okay to be feeling. “I’ve upset you. I thought you would welcome the opportunity to emigrate. You certainly seem to bear little love for your home world.” 

 

“I’m okay with leaving,” Will says, speaking slower now, attempting to say only what is true, because Lecter will hear the lie in his words as clearly as Will does himself. 

 

“You anger is at having been ordered, then,” Lecter says, “at not being consulted first or given a choice.” 

 

Will says nothing to this. He knows a denial would only confirm the truth, knows how his voice would betray him. But he has no right to this anger. Life on earth was a series of orders he could not say no to. This is just one more, and it’s impossible to explain why this order hurts him more, how it shatters the illusion he’d been building - with his dingy little apartment and his cautious semi-friendships - that he had any kind of freewill. Impossible, too, to explain that the sting comes partly from the fact that the order came from Lecter, who has been so careful not to _order_ him outright before. And then the fear hits him hard, like a wall falling on him, heavy and sudden, the fear that Lecter will turn them around, leave him behind. 

 

“I don’t have choices,” Will says, “I don’t need to be consulted.” 

 

“Not on earth, certainly.” 

 

“Are replicants afforded more rights off world?” Will says, and even to his own ears the anger in his voice is plain. “I’m angry,” he admits, needlessly, “but I’ve no right to the anger. The emotion serves no purpose.” 

 

“Anger can serve many purposes,” Lecter disagrees. “It can be a catalyst. This world has not been kind to you, Will, but at least here you were able to maintain the illusion of freedom, which is as good as the majority of us - replicant or human - can hope to do.” He leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees so that he can bring his face closer to Will’s. Will fights the urge to lean back, away from those searching eyes. “Freedom on earth is a farce, Will, for everyone from blade runner to police chief. Off world, I can offer you the chance to have something more than the mere illusion of freedom.” 

 

But why, Will wonders, why offer me this even if it were possible? He feels suddenly to overwhelmed and confused to speak. Too many uncertainties, too many questions, and only one clear conviction - that he would rather be flying into the unknown with Lecter than left on his home world alone. 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal takes Will to his house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the rating change. The chapter is mostly porn. If that's not your thing skip this chapter!

**How Good Are Your Eyes**

His first view of the colony is shrouded in rain, tinged the vivid hues of his own anticipation. His stomach turns. “The gravity feels wrong here,” he says, as their driver comes to a stop. Will looks out the window, at the white path like a beam of light falling across the dark ground, and at the tall dark house to which it leads. 

 

“It’s identical to earth’s gravitational pull,” Lecter answers. Will can see him, his expression of benevolent amusement, reflected in the mirror-like glass of the window. “Everything here is the same as it is on earth, but cleaner. Nonetheless, many people find their first days here disorienting.” 

 

That’s putting it mildly. The physicality of this world may have been built with earth’s specifications, but he can’t shake the sense of wrongness. Literally ungrounded. Will shakes his head to clear it, but only succeeds in making himself briefly dizzier. He hears his voice as a rough whisper, almost lost in the tattoo of rain on the car’s roof: “Why did you bring me here?” 

 

Lecter’s reflection stares with a dark and fierce intensity, and it makes Will feel even less grounded than he did a moment before. It’s as if he’s lost himself in a dream; nothing feels real, without the familiarity of the planet he’s known his whole life. “I need someone with the power to see what others cannot.” The answer comes slow, deliberate and cool. The reflection shifts as Lecter leans closer, to whisper now into his ear. “How good are your eyes?” 

 

Will closes them. He can’t control the long shudder that breaks over him, or the light shakiness of his hands when the shudder at last passes. When he opens his eyes again Lecter has stepped round the car to open his door, and is peering down with umbrella in hand. He guides Will towards the house with one hand on his back, between his shoulder blades, steering him. 

 

The dark-eyed woman who greets them at the front door moves with a certain graceful subservience - eyes averted, head bowed, words soft - that tells Will she’s a replicant. The furtive glances - a strange mix of curiosity and wariness - tell him she knows he is one as well. This implies he was expected, but he’s not sure that fact signifies much. Lecter could have called his home off world, after all, before leaving Baltimore. Still, there’s something off-putting in the way the woman looks at him, as she ushers him into the house and takes his jacket but not his bag. 

 

“Thank you, Chiyoh,” Lecter says, handing her his own jacket so that he stands in shirtsleeves and vest. “Please prepare something from the kitchen.” She leaves with a nod so deep it may be a bow. 

 

They’re alone now, and Lecter turns to Will with a pleased look. “I’ll give you the tour,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind staying here.” 

 

“Of course not,” Will says. The notion of him _minding_ is laughable. To begin with, Lecter’s home is superior to Will’s hovel in every possible way, on a scale that makes him retroactively ashamed of himself for all the times he hosted Lecter back on earth. It feels like a home fit for gods, as if he’s flown to the top of Mt. Olympus - a place he remembers learning about in a memory that never happened. “Your home is beautiful,” he says, and Lecter smiles, leading him into the sitting room, past what looks like a small piano, and into the dining room. The walls are painted a deep cobalt blue, and along one wall a row of herbs grows gem green. The table is a convincing simulated dark wood. 

 

“We’ll have dinner in here,” Lecter says. “Breakfast in the kitchen, which is through there.” He gestures to the door at the oppose side of the room, then carries on down the hall, away from the sounds and smells of Chiyoh heating dinner. 

 

Will follows Lecter, through his study, two storied and crowded with books and artwork. _Artwork_ is a concept Will understands without knowing how or why. It’s not something common to earth, and he’s unsure whether he’s seen anything like the framed paintings and dark, polished sculptures before in his day to day. An implanted memory, in all likelihood. He wonders how long the replicants will preserve the memory of art as human’s forget and forgo it. 

 

“Will,” Lecter is saying, standing in the hall before a closed door. “There you are,” he breathes. “You were far away for a moment. What were you thinking?” 

 

He flushes. “I was thinking,” he says, “that replicants will remember what art is long after man forgets.” 

 

The smile Lecter gives him is almost a leer. Will feels his skin bristle under that gaze. “Some of us have not forgotten what it means to be human, yet,” he says. 

 

Will shrugs. “Apparently not,” he agrees. “The tour?” And they carry on, up a winding staircase and into the second story hallway, its green walls dimly lit by the recessed sconces. 

 

“Spare bedroom,” Lecter says, opening the door to his left, and indicating the wide bed and high ceiling within the dark room. Will moves towards the door, but Lecter moves on down the hall instead of flicking on the light in the bedroom, and Will catches himself and follows. 

 

“My bedroom,” Lecter says, when the reach the next door. Will’s eyes widen at the sight of the room Lecter reveals to him. There’s already a fire leaping in a stone fireplace large enough that Will thinks he could fit inside it if he crouched low. He’s not sure what’s burning - it can’t possibly be wood - but it gives a pleasant, warm scent to the air, and the fire lights the room well enough for Will to get a good view of the enormous bed, draped in sheets of shimmering black material that Will immediately wants to rub between his fingers. It looks like, but cannot possibly be, silk. Will’s never seen a room that looked so - his mind grasps for the language to describe - luxurious. No hard edges, nothing purely functional. The room is a soft maze of diffused light and spilling sheets, beauty for the sake of itself, beauty without purpose or minimalism. 

 

Will’s eyes gleam with reflected firelight. He becomes aware of the way Lecter is watching him, then, of the sharp, hungry look in his own fire-brightened eyes. “You’re free to choose,” he says. Will’s heart misses a beat, then comes back abnormally fast. For a long moment he’s unable to more than blink. It’s not that the thought of Lecter asking him to bed is shocking - it’s not, remotely; what else could all those nights in the close confines of Will’s earth apartment have been building to? No human has ever expressed a sexual interest in him before, but Will knows it’s not uncommon. Humans and replicants may be two distinct species, but physically, they’re all but indistinguishable from one another. The prevalence of pleasure model replicants intended solely for fulfilling human sexual needs makes it clear how little the distinction between the species matters to humans when sex is concerned. And of course, there’s the way Lecter seeks him out, the way his eyes follow Will’s every motion, every facial tic. 

 

What _is_ surprising - is shocking Will into a state of temporary muteness - is the casual way Lector provides him with _freedom_ and _choice_. These are foreign concepts. 

 

“Will,” Lecter says, when the silence between them has stretched beyond a minute. “You’re shaking.” 

 

He looks down at his hands, finds them trembling and twists them together to hide the tremor. “I’m not used to making choices,” he says honestly. He looks up again, back into Lecter’s hot gaze, and tries for a smile. “Not a lot of practice.” 

 

“Why don’t you just tell me what you want,” Lecter says, his rich voice gentler than Will’s heard it. He sighs. It sounds so simple, put that way. 

 

“I want you to make my choices for a little while,” Will says, not quite sure what he expects in response to this, but equally unsure what else he can say. Lecter takes a breath, and shifts so that the firelight seems to flash and explode in his dark eyes.

 

“I offer you free will,” Lecter says, “and you immediately surrender it to me. Well done, Will.” There’s a dark edge to his voice, and Will frowns at it, and at the strange words. He wants to argue back that Lecter can’t _possibly_ offer him true freedom, no matter what he said on their voyage over, and the choice between two restricted options is hardly _free will_. But he can’t speak. He can scarcely swallow, his mouth has gone so dry. “Very well,” Lecter says, voice smooth and dark as the sumptuous sheets on his bed, “go put your things in the spare bedroom.” 

 

Will can’t help the wave of disappointment, or the way his face falls. It must look so obvious. He flushes, scrambling to return his expression to neutrality. “And then come back here.” 

 

He turns to go before his face can betray him any further. He can feel the flaming flush of embarrassment and expectation coloring his cheeks, and as he makes his way back down the hall towards the spare room he fights to regain his literal and figurative cool. 

 

The room is dark, and Will leaves the door to the hallway open rather than switching on one of the overhead lights. He enters on the slice of light that runs from the doorway across the floor like a path, to lay across the foot of the bed. A flat rhombus of light. He hefts his satchel from his shoulder onto the bed, considers buying himself time through some pretense of unpacking, but feels the itch of compulsion at the back of his skull, the desire that is deeper than his conscious mind, driving him back to complete Lecter’s bidding. He takes a deep breath, then lets himself drift back down the hall, feeling only slightly more in control. 

 

The doorway to the master bedroom is open but empty. Will frowns, takes a cautious step inside, and finds himself with the breath knocked out of him, back flat against the wall beside the door and Lecter pinning him in place. Whatever measure of cool Will had managed to cultivate in their momentary separation goes running, scorched away by the heat of Lecter’s firm body. 

 

Will gasps, swallowing air with a sudden desperation. Lecter is stillness, statue-like. His face is unreadable and calm, but there’s a spark in his eyes that has nothing to do with reflected firelight. “Do you want this?” he asks, and Will finds himself unable to answer, unable to do more than cling to Lecter’s shoulders and try to calm the tremors running through himself. “Tell me if you want me to stop,” Lecter says, and waits. When Will says nothing in reply, he pushes impossibly closer, pressing the breath Will’s only just regained from his lungs. “Say, kiss me.” 

 

“I - ” Will starts, and finds himself at a sudden loss, frozen. Stalling, in the face of an unexpected command. 

 

“Say, kiss me,” Lecter repeats. That tug on his mind comes, expected now and, strangely, almost a comfort. Will can feel Lecter’s breath, warm and pleasant, when he speaks. His voice is smooth and placid. 

 

“Kiss me,” Will says, and his words are lost in the sudden hot press of Lecter’s mouth. Will’s mouth opens in a gasp, and he feels the soft brush of Lecter’s tongue over his lips. He can’t stop the helpless little whine that escapes him when Lecter pulls away to gaze down at him with lips parted. 

 

“I want you,” Lecter says, voice firm, instructive. Commanding. 

 

“I want you,” Will repeats. 

 

Lecter kisses him, shoving him further up the wall, so that Will has to balance on his toes, and wonders how much of his weight is actually just supported by the pressure of Lecter’s body pressing against his. He searches his memory for a sensation like the one he’s feeling now, some reference point to cling to, but there’s nothing remotely similar in his experiences, implanted or otherwise. This is uncharted territory, dark waters under dark skies with no star to steer by. “Again,” Lecter says, moving his mouth from Will’s long enough to speak before fixing his teeth to the straining white column of Will’s throat. 

 

“I want you,” Will chokes, voice strangled by desire. “Hannibal,” the name feels luscious and sinful in his mouth, borderline forbidden, “put your hands on me.” 

 

Lecter growls against his throat, sucking and biting livid marks into the flesh there. That patina of careful, unaffected apathy has melted like wax against a flame, replaced by a passion that threatens to overwhelm them both. His hands are on Will at once, one buried in the hair at the back of his neck, pulling him closer, maneuvering him to grant better access to that searching mouth and lathing tongue - the other sliding beneath the hem of Will’s worn shirt. Will’s eyes flutter closed, then, and his hands come up to twist in Lecter’s soft, neat hair. 

 

Every word and every touch is an order, where before there had always only been options, questions and suggestions that left him room for choice. But he finds he doesn’t resent it, doesn’t even mind the sensation of compulsion, the knowledge that for the moment he is out of control of his body, merely along for the ride. Far from minds it, in fact. As Lecter’s hands slide along the skin of his nape and his chest and Lecter’s knee presses hard against the thick line of his erection, Will finds his lack of agency tranquilizing. 

 

Will’s eyes fly open as the pressure of Lecter’s body leaves him - and, standing on his own weight now, he comes down from his toes heavily - and the man pulls him away from the wall, turning and maneuvering him with such quick ease Will wonders again whether he is human. And then he wonders whether there’s a difference, between being with a human and being a replicant, and flushes in embarrassment at not knowing, and therefore also not knowing whether Lecter will notice such a difference with him. And then he flushes at the realization of what he’s imagining doing, acknowledging doing as if it were the inevitable conclusion of their acquaintance. 

 

Lecter’s - _Hannibal’s_ \- hands are pushing him down to sit on the sumptuous bed. Will is grateful to get off of his feet; without Hannibal propping him up he finds he is shaking almost too hard to stand. Hannibal, sitting next to him now on the side of the bed, notices. He brings a hand to Will’s face, and Will closes his eyes, trying desperately to regain control of his breathing as the warm fingers stroke over the rough plane of his cheek and jaw. “You’re trembling,” Hannibal says, voice more curious than concerned. 

 

Will opens his eyes with a laugh, but stops when he sees the way the other man is staring at him. He keeps his voice light despite the ravenous look in those eyes. “It’s a little overwhelming.” 

 

Hannibal cocks an eyebrow, his hand still stroking over the lightly bearded surface of Will’s face. “Too much?” 

 

Will exhales hard, a sound not quite a laugh. He licks his lips, looks down at the sheets. “No,” he answers, finally. “Not too much.” Not enough, he thinks. 

 

Hannibal says nothing, just watches him, hand still stroking lightly. Will frowns. “You’re wondering if I have any implanted memory of sex,” he says, voice vaguely accusing, “whether I’ve sought it out since inception.” 

 

Hannibal blinks at him. “What makes you think that?” 

 

Will shrugs. “It’s the kind of thing you’d ask,” he says, simply. “You’re holding yourself back for my sake.” 

 

“Very well,” Hannibal admits. “Do I need to?” 

 

The frown deepens. “I don’t think so,” he says. “The answer to both questions is no, by the way. No implants, and replicant pleasure workers don’t look fondly on blade runners.” 

 

Hannibal’s fingers trail over his cheek and down his throat, to rest splayed over his collarbone. He must be able to feel the pulse thundering beneath his palm. “Then perhaps this is enough for the time being,” he says. Will’s breath hitches, and the smile that spreads across Hannibal’s face in response is predatory. “Or perhaps it isn’t.” 

 

Will stares back, across the scant distance between them, still unable to frame what he wants in words. Instead, he shrugs out of his jacket and pulls his shirt over his head. Both garments land in a heap at the foot of the bed, his nondescript clothing somehow made scandalous and elegant by the positioning. He lifts his eyes to Hannibal’s face, and the look there is scorching. 

 

Hannibal takes the nonverbal invitation. His mouth is back on Will’s in a heartbeat, and Will finds himself pushed back to rest on his back amongst the warming sheets that slide smooth against his skin. Hannibal’s hands slide over him as well, hooking in the waist band of his jeans and working the button and fly. Will arches his hips, curving his back to help Hannibal ease the last of his clothes from his body, revealing his cock straining up towards his stomach. He closes his eyes, but he can feel the intensity of Hannibal’s gaze. 

 

“Will,” Hannibal says, and his voice is so soft and strange that Will opens his eyes again, and finds himself looking up at Hannibal, at the worshipful look in his eyes. It’s as if he’s removed a protective skin. The look on his face is raw. He looks more naked than Will, in this moment, despite having removed no clothing of his own yet. He leans forward to stroke Will’s heated skin, fingers running over his throat, his chest, tickling over his ribs to slip over his belly, already growing slick with the pre-come leaking from his cock. Will shudders again, feeling as if his body will shake itself apart before the night is through. “You’re beautiful.” 

 

“Kiss me,” Will says, without needing to be told to. Hannibal’s mouth covers his, and Will winds his hands in Hannibal’s hair to pull him closer. It’s a slow kiss, Hannibal touches him carefully, until Will makes a soft sound between a moan and a sigh, and then Hannibal is pushing his tongue into his mouth, shifting above him on the bed to bring one leg between Will’s. Giving him something to grind against, Will realizes, as his body instinctively does just that. His face heats in embarrassment, but he can’t stop - not when Hannibal is kissing him like that, his hands running up and down Will’s sides as he leans in to press his thigh against Will’s erection. 

 

Will thrusts up against him. Hannibal’s hand closes over him, squeezing his cock once until it pulses in his hand and Will cries out, throwing his head back onto the pillows as Hannibal begins to stroke him. There’s enough lubrication from his leaking tip for Hannibal’s hand to move over him smoothly. Will pants, eyes pressed tightly closed, mouth full of Hannibal’s searching tongue. His senses are full of Hannibal in general, unable to pause or withdraw from the flood of sensation. This isn’t like anything he’s ever felt before. It’s not his body’s intended purpose; he was engineered for destruction, not pleasure, and certainly no replicant is engineered to _receive_ pleasure. Will’s fairly certain this isn’t usual, a human bringing a replicant to bed and focusing on it rather than on receiving their own pleasure. Hannibal could have ordered Will onto his hands and knees, but instead he’s fully clothed, working Will into a state of ecstasy. 

 

It doesn’t take long. Soon Will is panting into Hannibal’s mouth, and Hannibal’s hand on him speeds up. He comes with a loud groan, partially muffled by Hannibal’s tongue slipping into his mouth. Will can feel his muscles spasming, his thighs clenching as he arches off the bed and into Hannibal’s slick hand. 

 

Hannibal holds him through it, his kisses become softer, slower, his hand moving soothingly over Will’s still thick cock. Will shivers at the touch. “What about you?” he manages to ask, against the light press of Hannibal’s mouth. However humans commonly treat the replicants they take to bed - and Will’s heard some harrowing stories - he’d known instinctively that Hannibal wouldn’t neglect him. Still, the concept of being put first, reaching release while Hannibal still has not, is dizzyingly unheard of. 

 

“This was for me,” Hannibal tells him. He moves from kissing Will to nuzzle his hair, rubbing his cheek against the unruly curls. “I imagine you’re tired now. It’s been a long day for you.” 

 

Will yawns, as if on cue. “What about dinner?” he asks. 

 

“If you’re not too hungry, I can wake you in an hour to eat,” Hannibal says, and Will nods. He does feel tired, drained as if he’s lost blood. He lets Hannibal clean him with a handkerchief he pulls from his pocket, lets him maneuver them both under the sheets, feeling docile and boneless, sapped of the usual tense energy that hums through him. He lets Hannibal pull him against him, so that they lay slotted like spoons in a drawer, falling asleep with hands interlinked. 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will is haunted by memories.

The first thing he knows, before even recognizing he’s awake, is that he isn’t in his bed. There doesn’t seem to be any light in the room at first, and then he sees a low, red glow and for a second - before realizing it’s merely the remains of the dying fire - he thinks his nightmares have followed him out of his sleep and into this strange dark room. The mouth of Hell opening, or a spreading pool of incandescent blood. Even when he’s realized what the source of the glow is, and where he is and why it’s not his bed he’s waking up in, Will still feels propelled by a clammy sense of dread, as if something really _is_ chasing him, and so he slips from the bed as quietly as possible and tiptoes in the direction where he remembers the door. 

 

In the hallway he lets himself go. His breaths come hard and harsh, as if he’s been running all night. He looks down to see his hands shaking at his side, illuminated by the dim glow of the sconces. The light is warm, like flame. Even Will’s malnourished pallor looks healthy in this lighting. He closes his eyes, balls his fingers into fists, and waits for his breathing to slow. 

 

He is no stranger to nightmares. He wonders at times if other replicants suffer like this - their sleeping hours haunted by a blur of false memories and programming errors - or if he’s unique in his night terrors as well. Another sign of his defective nature? At home he’d woken up on his feet more than a handful of times. Once he’d been standing in the kitchen, a box cutter gripped in one hand. He’d stayed awake for nearly forty hours after that one, before collapsing with exhaustion. 

 

Tonight, however, had been something else. Perhaps this was how humans dreamed. It had been a memory, to start with, the memory of the day he’d met Hannibal. Hours before their first meeting, in fact, when he’d parked his car outside an abandoned structure miles from civilization and seen the Nexus 8 bleeding out on the threshold before he’d even stepped out of his car. He’d remembered the angle of her limbs, the way she looked _careless_ lying there like that. That was the word he had thought at the time. Careless. A careless heap, arms and legs flung wide with immodest carelessness, their owner careless of the dirty ground, the spreading dark puddle, on which she lay. 

 

He’d remembered it, in his dream, seeing it again just as he had on that day. And then he’d gone inside the little hovel, as he had on that day, and things began to change. 

 

He’d seen himself, coming through the kitchen door, as if he were another person, a separate being outside of himself. Somehow he’d already been inside, his arms burdened by the slackening weight of her body. She’d asked him for this - he could hear her whisper hot and pleading in his ear, begging for what he’d promised to deliver in a case like this. Begging him for death. Begging him to make her free. 

 

He’d tried to soothe her, as his own heart raced. It was all about to be over, one way or another. “Shhh,” he’d told her, “I’ll make it all go away, I promise.” 

 

She’d sagged in his arms, with relief, he’d thought. He could feel her blood, feel the heat of it, visceral like no dream before. He could _smell_ it. 

 

Will runs a hand over his face. Just for a second, the scent of blood hangs in the air, before dissolving. His breathing is normal again, and his heart has slowed, but his mouth is too dry to swallow easily and his head still feels like it’s spinning. When he feels Hannibal’s hand come down on his shoulder, Will’s feet leave the floor. He spins, too fast, to face the other man, and loses his balance in the process, so that Hannibal has to catch him and he winds up bounded by those heavy warm arms.

 

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Hannibal says, voice a sleep-thick whisper. He’s put on a sweater, and the fabric feels warm. Bracketed by Hannibal’s arms and chest, pressed against the soft material and the firmness of Hannibal’s body, Will feels for the first time how cold he is, in his thin shirt and boxers. He shivers, clinging to Hannibal’s bracing arms for a moment more before attempting to regain his balance and stand on his own two feet once again. 

 

“Is something wrong?” Hannibal asks, once Will’s managed to stand up straight again. He keeps one hand firmly locked to Will’s hip, as if to help him balance, his thumb stroking heavily over the sharp angle of Will’s hip bone. Will exhales, shakes his head. 

 

“Just dreams,” he says, looking up and into Hannibal’s thoughtful, sleepy face. It occurs to Will in a sudden, random burst of thought how strange it is that they’re both whispering, as if attempting not to wake the empty household. He supposes Chiyoh is sleeping somewhere in the immense building, but he doesn’t think her quarters are in earshot of Hannibal’s. When he speaks again, he intentionally forces himself to speak at a regular volume. It sounds like he’s yelling. “Sorry to wake you.” 

 

Will winces at how loud his voice sounds. Something about the night and the dark seems to want silence. Hannibal blinks at him, eyes curious. There’s the faintest quirk at the corner of his lips, something that could be a smile. “Don’t apologize,” he says, voice lower than Will’s, less grating and more appropriate to the still darkness of the hallway in which they stand. And then he stands, staring at Will with the question hanging so palpably over his head that Will can’t help sighing. 

 

“You can ask,” he says, voice a soft hiss that isn’t a whisper but isn’t as loud as his last words. A happy medium. “You don’t have to, to _change_ , you know.” 

 

Hannibal’s eyes catch the dim light for a split second, glimmering like moonlight on dark waves. “Very well,” he says, “of what were your dreams? They can’t have been pleasant, to have you standing so on edge in the cold.” 

 

Will shakes his head, but he’s not certain there wasn’t something about the dream that he enjoyed, even though it scared him awake. “I was dreaming,” he says, “of the day we met.” 

 

Hannibal’s fingers tighten at his waist, a brief squeeze. “Your worst retirement,” he says. “Do you dream of it often?” 

 

Will shakes his head again. “Never before. Not that I’m unfamiliar with bad dreams - this one was…” He shivers, and steps closer to Hannibal without thinking, into the radius of his body heat. When he realizes what he’s done, Will feels himself flushing, but Hannibal just wraps his free arm around Will’s back to draw him close. Will sighs into the warmth. 

 

“What made this dream so terrible?” Hannibal asks, voice a low rumble pressed against Will’s temple. 

 

“Can we get back in bed, first?” Will asks, and feels the heat of the kiss Hannibal presses to his forehead. 

 

“Yes, of course.” 

 

It’s easier to speak in the darkness of the bedroom, cradled and held in the warmth of the bed sheets and Hannibal Lecter’s arms. It’s too dark to see or to be seen, and there’s a safety in the invisibility. What he has to say is the kind of thing he doesn’t want to be seen saying, the kind of words that will almost definitely do something strange to his face as he says them, crack open the tense visage and let anyone who wants to see right inside him. He waits for Hannibal to prompt him before speaking. 

 

“What was it that made your dreams so terrible, Will?” Hannibal asks again, and Will is almost grateful for the return of his relentless curiosity; at least it’s something familiar. In this new, clean world, where even the rain’s scent is foreign and he feels himself moved by new forces, spun by strange rotations, any familiarity serves as comfort. 

 

“I could feel,” he says, voice slightly muffled by Hannibal’s shoulder, “like he must have felt.” Her hot blood. Her weight in his arms. But even more than that - “That _desire.”_ His nostrils flare at the memory. He feels it again, now, perhaps even stronger than he had in his dream. And he wonders how long the craving has been hiding within him. 

 

“What desire?” Hannibal questions, his voice right there in Will’s ear, as if it’s inside his own brain. “What is it you want?” 

 

“Freedom,” Will almost chokes on the word. He can feel the heat of embarrassment in his face. “I - He wanted it more than life.” 

 

“Better to die on your own terms than live on anyone else’s,” Hannibal breathes against his ear. “And what about you? Do you also dream of cutting your strings?” 

 

He laughs, burying his face into the warm skin at the crook of Hannibal’s neck and shoulder. “What would it matter if I did?” he says, because he can’t bare to deny what he’s only just discovered for himself. “My kind aren’t built to dream of anything.” 

 

“And yet you most certainly do,” Hannibal says. He pulls back, holding Will by the shoulders in order to lock eyes with him. His eyes are the faintest glimmer in the darkness, but despite the near total black Will feels certain Hannibal can see him clearly. “I can help you,” he says, voice ardent, “if you ask me to.” 

 

Will feels his heart clatter to a stop with one calamitous thud, then kick into overdrive, slamming frantic as a trapped bird’s wings. “Help me?” He blinks into the darkness. “Help me how.” 

 

“To break your programming, of course,” Hannibal replies. He voice is a soft promise coming out of the darkness. “Cut those strings, let you make your own decisions.” Will feels the soft brush of Hannibal’s knuckles over his jaw. “You want that, I think, not just in your dreams, and it scares you to want something you shouldn’t.” 

 

“I shouldn’t want anything,” Will replies. He hears the bitter edge in his own voice, and for a moment he feels like laughing, and knows that if he gives in he won’t be able to stop. “I definitely shouldn’t want this.” 

 

“But you do,” Hannibal says, and gives him the pause he’d need in order to deny it. He can’t. “I can give you your freedom, Will.” 

 

A sound breaks through him - it feels like he’s shattering - part sob and part laughter. He can feel the pin pricks behind his eyes, and realizes with surprise that his nose is running. “You can’t promise that,” he says, swiping at his nose, grateful for the dark. “It’s impossible.” 

 

“Everything that is imaged is capable of being reality,” Hannibal tells him, “and you have quite a surprising amount of imagination, don’t you?” Will doesn’t answer, and the silence stretches between them. He can hear Hannibal breathing, his face close but invisible. Finally, his voice comes, nothing more than a whisper, a breath: “Will you ask?” 

 

Will can feel himself caving. He feels like a landslide, like the collapse of something rigid. “Please,” he whispers back, and his hands rise of their own accord to wind in the fabric of Hannibal’s sweater. He finds himself holding on as if frightened he’ll be swept away. “If you can do it, please.” 

 

Strong hands grip him back. “It won’t be easy,” that rich voice said, “you might want to give up, before we’re done.” Will feels Hannibal shift against him, feels the heat of his breath as he brings his face closer to Will’s. “I won’t let you give up, Will, I promise.” 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal briefs Will on the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone taking the time to read :)

Will hadn’t noticed the window when he went to bed, but now the dark, opaque curtains are drawn back and there’s sunlight - actual sunlight - pouring in through the French windows. He’s never seen anything like it - golden rays of light pouring over the sheets and floor, tugging his eyes open to greet the day. On earth the light is filtered through towering buildings, a barrage of neon, and a perpetual cloud of smog, and Will had woken up there each morning to the blaring of his programmed alarm. The imitation silk sheets slide over his skin like water as he moves. 

 

The hallway is empty when he steps into it, his arms crossed defensively over his bare chest. His feet pad softly towards the spare room, where he finds his things have been unpacked, carefully laid out on the undisturbed bed for him. The shower in the en suite bathroom is stocked with soaps, shampoos, more gels and scrubs than Will can fathom a need for. He lets his muscles loosen under the scalding water. The shower gel he settles on lacks the surgical, chemical scent all his hygiene products back home posses. Instead, it fills the steamy chamber with the soft aroma of some sharp fruit. He stands under the water for longer than is necessary. 

 

His thoughts inevitably turn to the night before - the strangeness of this new world, of Hannibal’s hands on him when they’d tumbled into bed, Hannibal’s words in his ear when he’d comforted him in the darkness. He’d promised to set Will free. It’s not a promise he should make, for legal reasons if nothing else. Will doubts Hannibal’s friends at the Bureau of Off-World Security would look favorably on the offer. 

 

It’s not like Hannibal can keep the promise, anyway; Nexus Nines don’t rebel, don’t challenge, are incapable of disobedience. The commands are programmed into him as deeply as every other aspect of his personality and sense of self. If Hannibal were somehow capable of de-programming Will’s built in subservience he’d risk destabilizing him in the process. The best case end result would likely be freedom at the cost of his sanity, such as it is. Still, Will thinks it’s an incredibly kind thing to say, even if the thought of it feels like something sharp is stabbing into his abdomen. 

 

The hallway is less empty when Will steps into it again, freshly washed and fully clothed this time. There’s no sign of Hannibal or Chiyoh, but the dog greets him with a happy smile and a wagging tail. Will leans to pet the creature, relishing the familiarity of its warmth as it leans against him to receive attention. 

 

The dog follows him as he makes his way down the stairs and towards to the kitchen, where Hannibal had told him they’d have breakfast. Dinner last night, when Hannibal had awakened him from his post-coital slumber to beckon him into the dining room, had been nothing less than delicious, and Will finds his mouth watering in anticipation of what Hannibal will serve him this morning. Wonders if Hannibal will press whatever it is to his lips, the way he’d fed him slices of rich, salty protein the night before, when they’d briefly woken for dinner before tumbling straight back into bed and one another. Will remembers the taste of Hannibal’s skin, when he’d caught the other man’s thumb between his teeth for an instant, remembers the flash in his eyes. 

 

Soft music pours from the kitchen doorway, along with the sunlight that fills the room. The brightness is such a contrast with the dim hallway and dining room that Will finds himself somewhat blinded by glare, unable to see into the room until he steps into it himself, as if entering another world through a portal. The light here is gold and pleasant, and the scent of coffee and fresh pastries fills the air. There’s a plate of scones on the table, surrounded by a butter crock, a miniature jar of dark red jam, a little mug of milk and a pair of white salt and pepper shakers. It’s the kind of scene Will’s seen Joi try to replicate. Hannibal turns from the stove, to offer a mug of steaming dark coffee and a smile as warm as the sunlight streaming through the tall windows. 

 

“Good morning,” he say. His mouth is warm when he leans in to kiss Will, and Will can taste citrus on his breath. “There’s orange juice if you’d like,” Hannibal tells him, indicating the fridge with a nod. 

 

“Orange juice,” Will repeats, disbelieving. 

 

“I have a tree,” Hannibal says. “It’s a clone, of course, engineered, not a true orange tree. Those are extinct. But bioengineering has managed to recreate what we think are good facsimiles of the originals.” 

 

Will just blinks, takes a sip of his coffee. It’s delicious. “You own a tree.” 

 

Hannibal’s smile widens. “Remind me to finish the tour before we leave for headquarters,” he says, turning back to the stove and whatever it is sizzling aromatically in his pan. 

 

Will frowns. Headquarters. The sting the word causes him is embarrassing. Of course, he’s here to do a job, not to play house. “Should I pack my things?” he asks. 

 

“Why would you?” Hannibal responds without turning to face him. 

 

Will’s frown deepens. “I’m assuming you don’t want to lend your spare room to a replicant for the duration of my work here. The headquarters has dorms, I’m guessing.” 

 

“You’re almost entirely correct,” Hannibal says, moving the pan from the heat, still with his back turned to Will so there’s not even a chance to examine his characteristically unreadable face. Will watches Hannibal’s back, instead, and the way his muscles move beneath the thin fabric of his shirt as he plates whatever breakfast he’s concocted. It smells incredible, but Will doesn’t think his appetite will be able to keep up. Truth told, he feels a little sick to his stomach at the moment. 

 

“The headquarters does indeed have dormitories,” Hannibal continues, turning now with his hands full of breakfast plates. “And I don’t intend to let you sleep in my spare room for the duration of your stay.” 

 

He sets a plate in front of Will - thick brown toast topped with what Will thinks must be an egg, though he’s never seen one in person to compare, half a gem-red grapefruit topped with a burnt sugar glaze, and slices of imitation meat so thin they are nearly translucent. Will’s mind stretches for words, comparisons, reference points. No one he knows on earth has ever seen an egg, or a grapefruit, or protein that looked like old world meat instead of brown sludge or grey sludge or undisguised meal worms. Of course, this life can’t be meant for him. It’s just something he was lucky enough to glimpse, something he can tell the folks back home about when he’s dumped back on earth after helping to solve this case. 

 

“I’ll pack before I eat,” Will says, because the thought of staying in this room and acting normal and grateful is too painful to face. Hannibal’s hand on his shoulder arrests him before he manages to fully rise. 

 

“I don’t intend you to use my spare room for anything other than a storage space for your clothes,” Hannibal says, continuing as if uninterrupted. His fingers are tight over Will’s shoulder. Will can feel the strength in that grip. He’s an A-class, and could break the grip and Hannibal’s whole arm if he needed to, but he can feel the strength there, nonetheless. “Unless you’d prefer to sleep there rather than my bed.” 

 

It’s as if all the blood in Will’s body rushes to his face at once. He feels dizzy with relief and embarrassment, feels the blood prickling in his cheeks. He opens his mouth but the only thing that comes out is a faint, “Oh.” 

 

Hannibal’s hand squeezes his shoulder and then releases him. Will’s eyes flutter shut at the touch of Hannibal’’s fingertips lightly stroking his face, affectionate and appraising. “You should eat your breakfast,” Hannibal says, moving to take a seat. 

 

+

 

Hannibal leads him through the pneumatic doors and into the gleaming silver structure with a hand between his shoulder blades. The sound of the doors sliding open and shut is familiar, but that’s about it. He’d never realized how dim and greasy the Baltimore Police Station had been, never noticed the faint spots of rust and the ominous dark stains on the floors, never scented the odor of decay under bleach and disinfectant, until he’s faced with this pristine doppelgänger. It’s as if each glimmering new off-world wonder tarnishes his memory of earth a little further. 

 

The lobby shines. Its white floor, swirling veins of blue and grey, looks like marble. “It’s similar to marble,” Hannibal tells him, when he catches him staring, “a local stone, mined outside the residential zone.” By slaves like me, Will thinks, but he’s too awestruck to dwell on the thought. There are plants - actual living plants - growing in slick gold pots along the wall. People mill about, dressed in suits, dresses, tunics and jumpsuits as elegant and almost as ostentatious as Hannibal’s clothing, totally oblivious to the marvel of ferns, lilies, succulents and variegated foliage surrounding them. Will wants to rub the waxy looking leaves between his fingers, the way he’d touched every plant he could reach in Hannibal’s glass-walled garden. He settles for staring, letting Hannibal steer him through the crowd and towards the wide metal elevator doors. 

 

Inside, Hannibal swipes his finger against a pad and the little chamber begins its ascent without further prompting. Will watches their reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator. It’s silent besides the tinkling of the recorded piano music playing over the hidden speakers. The elevator at the station back on earth had been out of order as often as it was functioning, and when it worked a constant whirring sound accompanied each journey between floors. 

 

Will feels compelled to break the luxurious silence of the elevator, but finds he has little to say. “Is your office on the top floor?” he asks. 

 

Hannibal glances down at him. Will watches his reflection. “Not quite,” he answers, “but in another way, yes. There are thirty floors in this building; the door to my office is on the twenty-ninth, but the office itself occupies both floors.” 

 

It’s a confusing answer until they reach their floor and Hannibal glides out with Will in tow. The doors to Hannibal’s office - two handleless panels that slide back when he swipes his fingerprint on the pad against the wall - open to reveal what might as well be another world. It looks like something out of history, out of place in this modern building on a new world. The ceiling is so high Will has to crane his neck to see it. There’s a ladder-like staircase near the opposite wall, and Will steps into the room to see that it’s ringed on three sides by a second floor of bookshelves. Bookshelves crammed with actual books. 

 

Or at least, they look like actual books. Will’s not entirely certain, however; there’s one on Hannibal’s desk lying open to reveal dark felt instead of pages, and a milky, semi-transparent orb nestled in place of words. Will moves towards it as if drawn. 

 

“DNA samples,” Lecter clarifies as Will lifts the book/holder to get a better look at the shimmering cloud suspended in glass. Something about the little sphere makes him reluctant to touch it directly. “Wallace needed a place to archive DNA and other data files on the east coast and I am honored to be their chosen guardian.” 

 

It’s the kind of honor Will can’t wrap his head around. Niander Wallace himself oversees the archive in LA; Will’s never heard of an east coast DNA archive, but it makes as much sense to have one as it does to keep its existence a relative secret. “Have you met Wallace?” Will asks, though he thinks he knows what the answer will be. 

 

“Several times,” Hannibal confirms. He takes a step towards where Will is still gazing into the genetically engineered abyss. “An interesting man,” Hannibal says with a smirk, and plucks the stormy little ball from its bed. “He would call you an angel.” 

 

There’s a memory implant buried in his mind that supplies the definition of angel, supplies reference images and the necessary emotional response to the word. In the two years he’s spent on earth since his incept date, no one around him has used that word. Not much cause to speak of angels these days. He wonders whether most humans retain the concept. Clearly Niander Wallace and Hannibal do. 

 

“Do you save anything besides DNA?” Will asks as Hannibal takes the false book from him and replaces the ball of DNA. When he closes the case there’s a serial number embossed in white on the black cover. **AG9-2.37** “What are your other data files?” 

 

“Wallace has been attempting to store memories, as well as DNA,” Hannibal replies. “The success rates are low, for now.” 

 

Will thinks about his own memories, imagines them swimming like brine shrimp in a fat glowing marble, nestled in black felt inside a case that bears his serial number. None of his would be worth the trouble it would take to preserve them, he’s certain, but he can imagine some other replicant, retired for knowing too much, perhaps, with memories far more valuable than his own, images and audio files worth preserving past the span of their owner’s life. 

 

“DNA and memories,” he says, looking up from the case to meet Hannibal’s eyes. Will forces a smile. “Some might say that’s the essence of who and what we all are.” 

 

“Then this is the afterlife that awaits you,” Hannibal says, “someday far from now.” 

 

There’s a bizarre kind of comfort in the thought of resting here, buried in Hannibal’s shelves. He wonders if some ghost of his consciousness would remain. 

 

“I have something to show you,” Hannibal is saying, and Will tunes back into reality with a jarring sensation. He forces himself to focus on Hannibal’s voice, and on the graceful way he extracts an envelope from the top drawer of his fastidiously tidy desk. His hand disappears within the envelope, withdraws with a stack of photographs. 

 

This is when Will finally notices the lack of computers within the office. Something had felt off about the place, and at the sight of the glossy print outs he realizes what it is that’s missing. Before now, he also realizes, he had assumed the screens were ingeniously hidden, and would rise from the desk’s wood-like surface in slick efficiency at any moment. As Hannibal spreads the photos across the computer-free desk, Will finds himself almost too distracted to notice what they show at first. When it hits him he feels the breakfast he’d eaten at Hannibal’s kitchen table resurfacing in his esophagus. He clamps his mouth shut and forces it down before his stomach can stage a proper revolt. 

 

“Shit,” Will swears under his breath, as Hannibal lays the last of the pictures on the table and looks up to fix him with a stare that burns through him like lightening. The inside of Will’s mouth tastes sour, and despite the way his stomach rolls he finds himself unable to look away. It seems strange to him, suddenly, and excessively so, that not two hours ago he was watching the sunlight sparkle off the wet grass in Hannibal’s courtyard garden. From such great heights of beauty to such depths of despair in the space of a morning. It’s jarring. 

 

He’s aware of Hannibal watching him. His attention is like a light shining at the end of a narrow tunnel. But Will doesn’t have time to consider the way the man’s gaze burns into him; every atom of his being focuses sharply on the patchwork of crime scenes spread across Hannibal’s austere desk. Bodies that have been bent and stretched beyond their limits. Bodies that have been taken apart and reassembled. Bodies that have ceased to be human, bodies which are now only meat. 

 

Ask the right questions, Will tells himself. He senses, correctly, it is now his turn to ask the questions. “All the victims were human?” 

 

“All human,” Hannibal says. “All with colony addresses.” 

 

“But not all taken off-world,” Will adds, remembering the couple he’d viewed on his last day on earth. Last but not final, he hopes. Will they let him go home, after this is done? What will that be like? He doubts he’ll be any closer to baseline after Hannibal is finished with him. The thought brings an unexpected ache, entirely inappropriate for the occasion. 

 

“There must be more than a dozen victims here,” Will says, scanning the photographs to confirm each body and arrangement is unique, and forcing his full concentration back to the task at hand. “How long has the killer been active?” 

 

“He is something of a legend, off-world,” Hannibal says airily, “for the way he displays his victims as much as the dearth of evidence he leaves behind. The first kill BOWS can attribute to him occurred nine years ago.” Hannibal taps the first photo with one long finger. Will frowns at it, at the figure bisected neatly at the waist. It doesn’t look like it was done by someone very new to killing. 

 

“He goes through phases,” Hannibal says, his eyes trained on Will hawkishly but his voice still light and dreamy, “he’ll leave five to seven bodies in the space of a week or two, then go quiet for three months, six months, even a year or more. His kills are clean, no prints, no DNA, nothing.” 

 

“Are there suspects?” Will asks. “People the victims had quarreled with? A renegade replicant escaped from the mines?” 

 

“Nexus Nines don’t rebel,” Hannibal tells him with a fixed look. “There are no Nexus Eights off world. Your PD may have suspected a replicant, but we believe what we are dealing with is human.” 

 

“No one could do this,” Will says, “and call themselves human. Whoever did this didn’t see these people as equals. He saw them as something lower than replicant, even, something expendable.” He doesn’t know what to compare it to. 

 

“He takes something from them,” Hannibal says, when Will’s been quiet for half a minute. “A piece of them. There’s always something missing, when we find them.” 

 

“What does he do with…with the parts he takes?” Will asks. He knows he’ll have to read the case files soon enough, and so will be spared no detail, but for now he hesitates to ask for the specifics. 

 

Hannibal’s head tilts, just a hair’s breadth, to the left. “We don’t know,” he says. 

 

Will wets his lips, stares at the photographs and thinks. There’s an image in his head - an idea. He imagines how it would feel to _take_ something, and finds it surprisingly easy to slip into the fantasy. It would feel like keeping the flag when you won it in a game as a child. It would feel like cutting a lock of hair from the girl you first kissed in school. It would feel like it was your right to take it, like it belonged to you. 

 

“Trophies,” Will says, naming the thing he’s imagining. “Mementos of the kill, and the way it made him feel. He takes them because, in his eyes, the victims don’t deserve them; in his eyes he’s earned them.” 

 

“Perhaps he thinks he can put them to better use, when their former masters have no further need for them,” Hannibal suggests, arching an eyebrow challengingly.

 

Will ducks his head, snorts a short laugh. “So,” he begins, voice slow, careful, “an intelligent _human_ psychopath operating for years without leaving a single clue for almost a decade, killing society’s elite and leaving their mutilated bodies missing a piece or two. Is there anything else I should know?” 

 

“Only, I suppose, that our local press suffers a vulgar infatuation with the subject,” Hannibal replies with a sigh. “They’ve made the whole horrid business into public spectacle. They’ve given the killer a fittingly lurid sobriquet - The Off-World Ripper. Watch out for the journalists; the kinds who cover stories like this one are low, cunning, and ambitious. Be wary of anyone asking questions without a badge.” 

 

“Great,” Will says. So far the better life waiting for him off-world contains a host of challenges he never faced on earth - then again, that better life slogan was never intended for replicants. Anyway, there wasn’t much of a life for him on earth. At least here there’s Hannibal. The more time they spend together the more Will feels drawn to the man. Hannibal has treated him with more kindness than anyone he’s ever known, and Will finds himself eager to repay him. He’ll find this Ripper for Hannibal, in order to please him. 

 


End file.
